#notice that although Dick and Jason make up at the end of the story it’s really got nothing to do with Jason himself

[cologona]

Starlin may dislike Robin in general rather than Jason personally, but when he writes shit like this where Jason is made to look like a bad student who Bruce struggles to teach, and Dick is the True hero who has to set him straight and clean up after him… it sure feels personal!

And look at the way Jason’s dialogue is written/ how he’s drawn in this issue and the issue prior:

He’s kind of… a huge dweeb. He’s obviously anxious, but in a way that fails to be endearing because he’s simultaneously shown to be careless.

He stumbles over his words in a way that indicates he’s struggling to face the situation at hand, and it’s made worse by the fact that Jason apparently finds getting reprimanded by Bruce or defying Nightwing to be a situation more difficult- more worthy of anxiety- than any of the other dangerous stuff he was doing. Like he really is written as someone who does not take the vigilante game seriously here.

Idk. This is a flashback issue which ends with Jason sort of redeemed by virtue of getting on good terms with Dick, and if this characterization had been allowed to stay in the past it would’ve been ok I guess. But Jason dies a little while later and instead of this little arc where Jason went from a shitty kid to a decent hero who made good on the legacy Dick left him, he is just Entirely defined as this shitty reckless kid.

Thanks I hate it!

[lightwing-s]

batboys as words, as per my own thoughts and perception

A few days back, @igotanidea asked me to describe the bat boys in one word. I got way over my head and ended up writing full on paragraphs on what reminds me the most about them, and what energy I get from the limited knowledge I have of all of them. So I tuned this into a post to fill the emptiness I left this tumblr on and to prepare you for stories to come (yes, Jason x villain!reader is finally coming)

picture © lomlisyou on pintrest

To me, if there’s one word, one thing, that could describe Dick Grayson pretty well, it’s sun. He is like the sun in the sense that he brings life into everything and everyone he touches. He’s a believer in people, in the best we all have in store, and he has a way of making them believe in themselves, in their skills and abilities, making them see the greatness they didn’t notice they owned. He’s a leader, and a great one at that. Although not much of a jokester, he can bring happiness and a smile on people’s faces. He carries a lot on his shoulders, from being the very first Robin to leading the Titans and replacing the Batman, but his heart is too pure and he wants to help people nonetheless, so he keeps taking more responsibilities just so he can assist those he cares for. I’d imagine his love language are acts of service, doing what he can to make his loved one comfortable and happy. In a few words, he’s warmth, silliness, he’s flirting for fun, he IS fun, he’s sugar, spice and everything there is of nice.

If I could describe Jason with one word it would be… caring. Out of all the boys, and out of everything he went through in life, he strikes me as the most protective, the one who will always make sure if you’re alright, if you’re safe, if you’ve been taking your pills or not skipping meals. I know we usually relate him to this aggressive vigilante form, but that’s the Red Hood, not Jason. Jason? Jason is the sweetest, most loving person you’ll find out there. He lost his family and the guy who took him in wasn’t affectionate at all, and he also went through so much. He just wants to protect and feel protected, hence I give him the words care, affection, protection, subtlety. He’s a well stored, well locked, box of surprises, that I’m sure whoever gets to open will feel a love they never had before.

I don't understand as much about Tim as I do his brothers, but from my limited knowledge I think of him as someone who thinks about the details. He’s the guy who, even though you’d never take his aloof mannerisms for that, remembers every small thing you ever told him. Or notices every gentle habit, tick, or whatever it is you have. He’s observant and with that he’ll learn everything there is about you without you needing to tell him a word. He’ll gift you with that thing you spent a millisecond more than usual staring at when you hung out at the mall, or he’ll cook (more like order) that dessert that had you sighting slightly heavier than normal. He is attention, he is detailing, he’s watching the ones you love like the most addicting tv show. He is subtle touches, surprise gifts, random music concerts just because he knows you have that one song hidden on your playlist. He is noticing things not even you, not even your reflection, saw in yourself.

To define Damian in a few words is a bit hard to me, as he’s still young and is still learning about life, developing his own ideals and personality. Hence, having this in mind, to me he is represented best by time. Time to grow, time to heal, time to learn. He is also space. The space he needed to understand his place in the world after leaving the League of Assassins, his mother and grandfather, and joining his dad and his mission for good in Gotham. He’s time and patience to allow all of those things to happen. Not only time for him, but to those he cares for. I feel like he won’t be one to always be on your feet to make sure you’re okay, but that he’ll let you have your time to yourself, rest and put your head into place when you’ve been having stressful days or just don’t feel alright. He’ll only show up after you’ve had your moment, perhaps with food and beverages. He’s quiet kindness, he’s healing, he’s fixing everything even if it takes time. He’s resistance, endurance, fortitude. Overall, he is like a watch, always running, never stopping, but always giving everyone time.

[luvly-writer]

“But oh..Cara mia”

Ch. 3: I want context

———————————————————

Dick Grayson x Latina! Readers

Status: Ongoing

Warnings: none

Author’s note: Ages of the group in the present:

Barbara - 28

Dick - 27

Yn - 25

Jason - 23

Tim - 19

Steph - 19

Duke - 18

Cass - 17

Damian - 11

Dick is two years older than Yn.

Enjoy the story!

Taglist: @lorosette @nanas-teatime @prettyacademia00

Series Masterlist:

———————————————————

Yn stiffened at the question, she felt as if the air had been punched out of her lungs. Damian noticed the girl pale a little. She lets out an uneasy laugh and looks down at her notes, where she fiddles with her pen. “Nothing has happened between Richard and me, Damian, what makes you say that?” she mutters and Damian deadpans, he clears his throat making her look at him and answers, “You have an inconsistent relationship in comparison to the rest. It’s...” he trails off, looking for the right word, “concerning, Grayson is awfully bright and annoyingly charismatic. You are very kind and overall tolerable to be around. The problem is both of you get along like oil and water when one would assume the opposite based on your personalities. Why is that?”. The young woman was stunned, to say the least. She didn’t know how to answer. She bit her lip unsure of what to say.

Thankfully, the engine of a car and various motorcycles were heard in the cave. Everyone had arrived; Yn had never been more relieved of seeing everyone. Giving Damian a tight smile, she told him, “That’s a discussion for another day” and she stood up, walking towards the rest. Once again, Damian noticed her eyes find Grayson in relief that he was alive. What the hell had gone down between them? 

During the week, Damian tried chasing Yn down, wanting an explanation, and seeing as the girl was successful in avoiding it he decided to track down the next suspect on his list. Grayson. This one had been easier to identify seeing as Grayson liked any excuse to spend time with his siblings, yet, when asked the very same question, Grayson had avoided it completely, much like YN. He had tried a few times until he realized he wasn’t getting any help from either of them. Why were they avoiding it so much? It frustrated Damian to no end having absolutely no progress in his investigation. Bruce was out of the equation knowing that he would not offer any amount of clarity and he couldn’t ask Alfred because he would get berated for intruding on other people’s business.  His next target was Gordon. From what he had observed, Barbara and you seemed to be best friends. You were constantly together. Although you spent time with all of them, having movie nights with Cain and Thomas, playing video games with Drake and Brown, and going to the library with Todd, the person who you seemed to be closest to was Gordon. It would make sense the most seeing as Gordon, Grayson and you were the eldest, with you being the youngest of the three. He sought her out during the day and found her and Drake discussing something in the Batcave. The only other people in the cave were Jason, Duke, Cassandra, and Stephanie. Bruce was at work, Alfred was running errands, Yn was in New York visiting Diana, and Grayson was God knows where. He thought for a second if he should question in front of everyone but he figured that they could also help to provide information since they had been around much longer than he had. He went down the stairs and called her out, making everyone look at him. “Gordon, I have a question that I believe you would be the best for assistance,” he said. Cass and Steph were sparring, Jason and Duke were working out, and Tim and Barbara just looked at him curiously. “What is the relationship between Ln and Grayson?” he asked and everyone stopped what they were doing.  They all looked at each other, then at Barbara, who was staring at Damian with wide eyes. “What do you mean, Damian?” she asks nervously. Cass, Steph, Jason, and Duke neared, intrigued by what was going to happen. “You are the one that has spent the most time with them, what happened between them? Every time they interact, something is off. Sometimes they bicker lightheartedly and other times there’s this coldness from both of them. As a matter of fact, Grayson is known to not behave that way with any of us, why are they so hostile with each other one second, and the other they share looks of fondness. It is infuriating and confusing” answered Damian, and everyone stayed silent for a moment. Then, Stephanie spoke up, “You know, I’ve always wanted to know myself what went down between those two. I guess over time, I got used to the lack of context and just dealt with their weird-ass relationship.”, Tim nodded in agreeance. For all he had investigated about them before he was Robin and everything he had come to know after he became Robin, the mystery of the hostility between them two was something he never figured out? He just had gone with it because of the lack of answers. Then Duke spoke up, “Honestly, thank everything that Damian brought it up. Seeing as I got here last aside from Damian, their relationship is super fucking weird.” Cass nodded in agreement. Both Jason and Barbara looked at each other. Both of them had witnessed a good amount of that hostility and were wondering who was going to speak up first. Another silence engulfed them and, Jason was the one to break it. “Their relationship is rocky at best. To be fair, you guys haven’t witnessed the messiest fights between them” at that Tim spoke up, “OH! I have seen a few, even Bruce knew not to get in between them” and everyone else’s eyes widened. Finally, Barbara stood up, and spoke “Fine. I will tell you all that I know, but not here. We need a more secluded place.” and all of them agreed. 

They had settled for the library, where they would hear if someone would enter and could talk lowly just in case. They had all settled on the couches and thus, Barbara began her story. The rest were so ready to hear everything and didn’t even try to hide their curiosity. Finally, the context of the real mystery would be revealed and maybe, together, they would figure out what really happened between Yn and Dick. 

[f4nd0m-fun]

Double Isekai Cryptids

@puppetmaster13u

Some images at the end BTW

@hallowsden helped me with this idea but basically...

||=====||=====|| Background ||=====||=====||

Gotham is a piece of Faerun that got warped to Earth decades if not centuries ago. While it's not connected to Faerun as much as it used to be, anyone there is more 'forced human' than 'actual human', at least in a general sense. If anyone happens to find themselves in Faerun though, their truer form or forms unlock, which can certainly be surprising for most. But as long as they're on earth, they seem almost entirely human, although it's best not to stare at a gothamite for too long, especially a stressed child (as those have the easiest time accidentally showing their truths).

Of course, Gotham wasn't the first planar warp, and wouldn't be the last. After all, the LoA were tied intrinsically to this as well, once a long proud line of demons, reduced to immortal humanity. No wonder Ras sought Bruce as a son-in-law, both his skills and his ties to the Before.

Alfred has technically been around since the planar warp, he just happened to decide to explore this 'new' world a few times, and see what it had to offer. Perhaps the closest equivalent to what he would be might be along the lines of an 'arch changeling' (essentially just an arch fey though).

What Thomas and Martha were, no one is really certain of, but after what happened with their first son, they tried for another. Unbeknownst to them, it died shortly after, and Alfred replaced the dead child with one of his own in an attempt to make his partners happy.

Bruce is a changeling. His parents suspected something was different, but didn't care to dig, they were just happy to have him. But when they died, his form glitched out, a partial change, the poor traumatized child being found by Gordon who was quick to wrap him up and out of sight until he calmed. Eventually, Leslie found out as well, but Bruce didn't find out for years.

Slade is a vampire. Not of the DC variety persay, but similar, just dampened by the lack of access to the Before. Due to this, his actions towards Dick caused the boy to be a hidden Dhampir, although his family already had a long line of dampened elven blood.

Jason is a Duegar, sturdy and good at tinkering, but quite used to darkness, although he may even have a little surface dwarf in him. It's not certain, but perhaps this is the true origin of that white streak he has.

Cass is a drow, showcased in her elegant movements and affinity for the darkness.

Tim is a probably a gnome, well known for their inventiveness.

Steph is a kenku, although that can change.

Duke is undecided.

Damien is technically a tiefling, altho the human in him is merely a mimcry due to the nature of his father.

||=====||=====|| Story ||=====||=====||

The exact reason is unknown, but Bruce and his children get scattered around Faerun during the events of BG3, Bruce taking the place as Tav. Due to the isekai plus tadpole alongside the fact that everyone got de-aged roughly a decade (time in the two realms runs differently), he has minor amnesia. As a funny not-funny, the Guardian takes the appearance of Joker, and Bruce is not happy. He's not entirely sure why he hates the figure but he knows he will annoy him as much as possible. He starts as a rogue, adds monk, focuses on monk, and then happens to notice he's apparently a warlock out of the blue? (more on that later) Idea is to have him Monk 5 Rogue 4 Warlock 3 (before any extra levels from mods).

Bruce 31, Dick 13, Jason 9, Cass 9, Steph 8, Tim 7, Duke 5, Damien 1

Jason and Cass are found in the underdark, and, even afterwards, keep (sorta jokingly) playing the twin card. Cass keeps calling Jason 'little brother' and he keeps telling her, and others, that he's older (saying how many weeks or months apart as minutes instead).

Dick and Damien are found at Last Light's Inn, having been kinda taken in by Jaheira. Dick still doesn't realize he's a Dhampir, just that he's been eating a lot more red meat. Meanwhile, Damien is far from happy in such a 'tiny, useless body' and gets into a habit of biting people (if he could speak fully, he would insist he's not teething, he's just defending himself!).

Not sure about the others.

Alfred, meanwhile, has been in a form much closer to his proper fey form recently. He spend a few Earth weeks letting the kids get up to whatever, then popped over and forced a warlock bond. Because of family among other things, it wasn't that hard to do without Bruce's explicit permission, and this way he can keep a better eye on his son. He's rather friendly with Withers, who likes to say that the After has made him soft. At the endgame party though, he shows up, and promptly drops into a more human looking form, although he feels comfortable enough around his family to keep a few otherworldly features.

||=====||=====|| Images ||=====||=====||

Human Alfred is slightly overweight and about 5'9; He has some wrinkles and hair that's peppered with grey; His eyes are a dark hazel; He looks like a standard human elder.

Mildly fey Alfred is a bit skinnier than would be healthy for a human and is roughly 6'5; He has a face of a man several decades younger and his hair has no grey; His eyes are an almost-glowing yellow; With double pointed ears and sharp nails, he looks even less human.

Changeling Bruce (mod) sticking as close to the appearance he knows, with some absurd proficiencies, still not sure how I ended up with such wild profs but it fits him. Starting as a rogue, with noble background of course.

Joker Guardian, Brucie will not be trusting him very much if at all.

[bruciemilf]

Darling, I just had an idea, but my brain doesn't know how to process it yet. And I want your opinion on it.

So, we know Thomas was a doctor, all right. Bruce ended up dropping out of medical school and all that. To put on the suit and be a mogul/justice fighter.

And well, that thanks to all that he was reunited with his kids and blah-blah-blah--

But I feel like he gave up the career for more than one reason.

It was relatively comforting and nostalgic for him to study medicine… I mean, it was his father's profession and I refuse to believe anything other than Bruce using his father's anatomy books to study or going through old medical cases to see his father's take on them.

And I doubt Alfred didn't chide him every now and then that Bruce would have been a wonderful doctor. And that, although he doesn't complain about what he's achieved, he would have liked to have seen his boy be a doctor.

But, I'm just saying, can you imagine what would have happened if Alfred had convinced Bruce to just take a year off and then go back to medical school?

How would things have been? How would he have met his kids?

I feel like Bruce would have been a pediatrician. Because I have a feeling he would have been a wonderful one. A strapping, sweet, tender, dedicated paediatrician.

I feel that, when the circus people noticed that Dick wasn't eating or drinking anything at all after his parents died, they made a triple effort between them to get him to a paediatrician. And Bruce, or God, just to see poor Dick completely depressed and traumatized…. It was like looking at himself at that age.

I feel like he didn't want to charge the Crico people anything, he covered the cost of Dick's recovery himself. And when he found out that Social Services wanted to take him away from the circus, he didn't think twice about it.

And before he knew it, he was in the legal department of the hospital, signing the legal guardianship papers. Alfred almost threw away his dinner when he saw him arrive at the mansion, after three straight guards, with a little Dick curled up in his exhausted arms.

I feel that Jason, out of some Samaritan soul's desire, inadvertently runs him over as he flees with the tyres of a stolen car. The person in question, noticing what he had done, takes Jason to the emergency room… and that's how Bruce meets his other child. Obviously the unknown pays for everything.

A little Jason, completely frightened and disoriented in a huge hospital bed, who does not know how he got there. A little Jason, who from one moment to the next has to answer the silly questions of a rather rude policeman who makes him want to burst into tears. A little Jason who, amazed, watches in wonder as Dr. Wayne takes the ugly policeman out and helps him eat and tucks him into bed, gives him extra jellies on the sly and always reads him a story until he falls asleep.

The kindly Dr. Wayne, who cries when he learns that the boy's parents won't pick him up and have basically abandoned him at the hospital…. So now he's in a huge room, inside a huge house, with a rather boisterous older brother… but now Doctor Wayne is his dad, he always has warm food and is tucked in every night; and then sneaks into his new dad's bed.

What do you think?

(Just a visual reference of Bruce, holding a baby in NCIU)

Hey bestie thanks for considering me!!! Honestly, looking through the peep-hole, the medical field seems like the most desirable career for Bruce (calculated, energy taxing, honestly kind of horrifying but also moving in a constant speeding wheel of innovation)

It's more so the branch of medicine where it gets fickle. Thomas was a surgeon if I'm not mistaken (okay, talk your trash Dr. Strange) and I feel like Bruce would feel a constant pressure of living up to him if that were the case, which is why he dropped out in the first place besides batman (for me)

There's also the detail of Bruce's hands barely hanging on for dear life after so many fractures and Injuries. I don't think he'd like to take the risk djsjs

Peditrican seems like the best option, former to nurse! I love the backstories for the kids as well :>

[liquid-luck-00]

Where There Is Change

Identities

@maribat-bdbwm

First *** Previous *** Next

~~~~~~~~~~

Once the crashes died down, Alfred returned with a pet carrier and a smug Jason.

"Not to say this revelation isn't important, but in this moment it is not." She spoke as she stood up. "What is urgent now is to return Damian to his original state. Do you know who was the person who caused the transformation?" She looked up at Dick, because of the call she heard he may have been there when it happened.

She specifically looked at Dick, directing her question. He on the other hand opened and closed his mouth, debating on how much he could tell her.

"I don’t know who they were, but I can remember some pieces of their appearance if that helps any." He started to speak. "One was definitely a girl, ashy blonde, brown curly hair and was wearing equestrian riding clothes in browns and white. And I’m sure she had ears and a tail. The other I can’t tell if they were male or female, so they wore dark grey shorts, black stockings, and an orange crop top. Their arms were stained black to their elbows, the most unsettling purple eyes. Ears and nine tails the same orange as their hair."

"So, in other words a horse girl and a human nine tailed fox. Who turned your, our brother, into a black panther cub." She repeated aloud. It’s not that it sounded impossible, the thing is it sounded familiar. Not just vaguely, but headache inducing familiar, unfortunately in more ways than one.

---

*Flash Back*

A silvery blue portal opened and out stepped a human Trixx and Kaalki.

"When did you two leave?" Tikki flew up to greet them.

She wasn’t paying them much attention. She noticed that they changed back and all three went back to the miracle box. Yet she did not think it was important to ask them on their exploits.

*End*

---

She stayed silent, lifting her hand, thumb under her chin, index on her lower lip. She was thinking. She closed her eyes and took a breath.

Trixx.

This was Trixx’s magic. Meaning that it could be reversed, but they would need to be the one to do it.

She opened her eyes. Her voice was level, but her voice held authority. "Trixx." Was all she said.

---

Marinette stood so still he could have confused her for a statue. Then her eyes snapped open, her blue eyes almost glowing.

Then she spoke. Dick couldn’t believe her voice, it was eerily level, but held such authority that he stood straight. "Trixx."

A beat passed and nothing happened. Then she repeated the same word.

"Trixx." This time the smallest sliver of anger or was it disappointment lingered on the word. Although he knows she isn’t talking to him, her disappointment weighs on him.

Then an orange ball of light appeared in the center of their little circle. "I’m sorry. I didn’t think that the angry, stabby, bird vigilante was going to be your brother." It then turned around and saw him. "Oh, you are the blue bird." It flew around his head. "Oh, and this now makes a lot more sense. Did you realize that there was a peacock in this house." The mini little fox flew over to Alfred.

"Yes, I realized that Trixx." Marinette answered. "But you being distracted will not distract me."

"But it’s practically fate." The fox, Trixx, exclaimed while flying circles around Alfred’s head.

"Him not realizing you cursed Damian, is what should be considered luck."

"But birds don’t usually turn on foxes."

"Miss Marinette, how is it you have a kwamii with you?"

"Not just one." The fox piped up before Marinette could open her mouth.

"Trixx."

"Sorry I’ll go back."

"Not until you turn him back."

"But Mariiiiii." The fox pleaded. "Fine." They relented. "It isn’t permanent and will completely fade in 72…60 hours."

"Thank you."

"Miss Marinette, do you have multiple kwamii on your person?" Alfred asked her.

She panned for a moment; Dick assumed she was thinking of her response. "Robin." She pointed at Damian still in the carrier. "Nightwing." She pointed at him. "You fit as Red Hood making you Red Robin." She pointed between Jason and Tim respectively. "That would make you Batman himself." She turned to Bruce. "Am I correct Peacock?" She turned to Alfred.

"You are a ladybug." Alfred answered her, but Dick was just confused with this girl.

"I am also the Guardian, not just a ladybug." She returned.

"Okay, wait." He had had to interject. "You just assumed who we were because of a flying fox, you are calling Alfred a Peacock and he is calling you a ladybug. Respectively what does that mean."

"Was I wrong?" She asked in a deadly calm, tilting her head, the only indication of her confusion.

"You are correct, Ladybug." Alfred confirmed, causing everyone to turn to him wondering if he's lost his mind.

She nodded and then once again with resolution. "He calls me ladybug because I am the holder of the Ladybug Miraculous, as he is the designated holder for the Miraculous of the Peacock."

"So how does that play into you figuring us out." Was asked by Tim seemingly awake now.

"That was made by a combination of what Trixx said, my basic knowledge of heroes outside of Paris, and my personal ability to recognize people as akumas." She shrugged.

"That's the second time you've mentioned akuma, Marinette." Her father space up. "You know more than you let on."

She chuckled at this. "Of course, I do. I am Lady Scarlet, the holder of the Ladybug Miraculous, and heroine of Paris."

"Shit! She didn't need your help to be a hero B." Jason screamed.

"That alone explains so much more than you believe." Bruce sighed walking out of the room, Tim and Alfred following him, Jay following not soon after.

He would have followed, he was just out of the door, if he didn't stop when she spoke.

"Are you going to behave?" He backtracked a few steps and watched her, he leaned against the door frame, in full view.

She held up a single finger then knocked on the air. Held up two fingers then tapped her index and middle finger to her thumb. It took him a moment to recognize the ASL, but Damian picked up on it quickly.

He meowed once and she went and released in from the carrier. Who then jumped on her bed, watching her. His gaze turned to him, and he blinked slowly, before going back to watch Marinette.

Next

~~~~~~~~~~

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[robinofgothamcity]

♡ scenario: meeting dick's ex girlfriend and it going awkwardly well

♡ characters: jason todd ( red hood ) x fem! reader

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes / i'm sorry but have yall seen that comparison of Jason Todd from Titans to the comics that the DC Titans twit made? bc every time i look at it, it takes me out. my twitter groupchat have slaughtering it all night :').

you in Dick's apartment, fiddling with a few of his weapons as he sternly told you to put it down before you hurt yourself. you, clearly not bothering to listen, continued to fiddle with the batarang as it managed to hit you on the nose. in between Dick's laugh, he wheezed out an 'I told you so'.

"fuck off, when are we going to your dad's place?" you asked, "I want to get back home before we get back to our apartments later than we already are," you mumbled, getting up and grabbing your keys.

Dick ushered you out the door, murmuring that he'd buy you a coffee on the way to Gotham as compensation for helping his family out. you were Dick's ex girlfriend and although the two of you ended on friendly terms, you managed to know his families secret and thus, you decided to help Dick out with his hero work in Bludhaven.

the two of you had realized a while into the relationship that neither of you were really into each other romantically. it felt a bit forced with the kisses and dates and a part of you saw the way Dick felt about his ex still. you weren't mad at the way he felt about Barbara but you could tell that he still had feelings for her and you didn't want him to deny his true feelings for her anymore.

both of you hopped into your car and made your way over to his father's place. you had met Bruce a while back when you were dating Dick and by extension, you had met Dick's younger brother Damian. he was still a bit of a prick to you every time you met him but Dick had told you that Damian was just that way with everyone. you had a few interactions with Duke and Cassie from time to time but it was only when they stopped by. the only two you had yet to meet were Dick's two younger brothers, Tim and Jason.

you had heard stories about them it wasn't anything too crazy. all you knew was that Tim was a bit on the shyer side and Jason was the one with the crazy backstory. they hadn't told you everything about Jason but you did know that Jason was dead at one point and managed to come back. how? you didn't know and frankly, you didn't want to know. knowing that this world was filled with superheroes from out of this world and held supernatural abilities was enough for you.

by the time you arrived to Bruce's place, you had Dick take in your back pack as you sipped away on the Starbucks he had bought for you. Dick entered through the batcave, waving a hello to everyone as you saw Damian and gave the little gremlin a smirk before chasing him for a hug.

"get away from me you peasant," Damian screamed, grabbing his blade and pointing it at you. you laughed, sitting down on his chair, "aww, and to think I thought you'd be happy to see me!" you giggled, taking your laptop out of your bag with a few other things.

you noticed that there was another person in the room that you hadn't familiarized yourself with and got up, "hi, I'm ( your name ), Dick's work partner," you said, stretching your hand out for him, "and the pain in my ass." you rolled your eyes as the man chuckled, "I'm Jason," he replied. his voice alone made the hair on your arms raise in goosebumps as you found his voice extremely attractive, "pleasure," you responded, trying not to sound nervous.

Dick wasn't the smartest of all brothers, clearly but it didn't exactly take an idiot to see the way you immediately acted around Jason. he noticed the way you pulled yourself back a bit as Jason stood up to give you a proper hello. when he first met you, you were instantly the confident person you always were but this time, you were pulling yourself back a bit.

"so, how did you meet Dick?" Jason asked. you laughed, "we're partners at work and I even dated the asshole for a while," Dick whipped his head around as you heard Damian hollering from laughter, "I'm right here!" he exclaimed. you rolled your playfully, "please, I heard the way you talk about me to Barbara," you pressed, making Dick slump down in his seat in shame.

Jason laughed at the way you managed to make Dick fall back. he had never seen someone do that to him before and frankly, he kind of liked the way you poked at Dick a bit. everyone knew he was the easiest target to mess with but it seemed as though you were professional at it, just like Damian was.

"so, who are the ones on patrol tonight?" Bruce asked, getting up. Damian and Dick raised their hands as they all looked to Jason, "you're still hurt from your previous run in so you will be sitting this one out Master Jason," Alfred spoke up. you saw the way Jason wanted to argue but Alfred gave him the 'you better not try it' look.

"you can stay with her," Dick offered, slipping into his suit, "she's helping out with communication tonight since Tim is off doing work with the Titans." you gave Jason a wave of encouragement as he agreed, not as excited as you thought he'd be. you shrugged it off, waving everyone off with a 'be careful' lecture.

the batcave went silent as Alfred had offered to bring the both of you coffee for the long night. you were sitting across from Jason, your legs crossed as you slipped in your headphone into one ear to make sure you could hear what Damian, Dick, and Bruce were saying clearly. you cracked your neck, trying to make it unstiff as you gave the three of them their coordinates of where they were to meet if they all separated....which was the first thing they did.

"so, why did you and Dick break up?" Jason asked suddenly. you lifted your head up, "oh, we just realized we were better off as friends," you replied, "everything felt kind of forced and a bit weird so we figured it was best to just be friends before it got any weirder."

Jason nodded, smiling underneath his stoic face. he knew he wanted to make a move on you but realized it was a slimey thing to do so quick. he hadn't known the real reason to the break up but figured since you were still friends with Dick, it clearly meant that there were no hard feelings, especially when Dick was trying his time again with Barbara.

the two of you remained silent, sipping away on water and coffee. a few yawns crossed your face as you tried to keep yourself awake. this wasn't the first time Dick had you doing this but you hadn't went strictly from work to Dick's place and didn't get the chance to take a nap before leaving. Jason saw the way you were fighting off your sleep and chuckled.

"tired?" he asked. you nodded slowly, "long day and an even longer day tomorrow," you replied. you saw your phone ping up with text messages as you let out a groan of annoyance, "something wrong?" Jason asked, seeing the way messages came in left and right.

you flipped the phone over, "it's dumb. some guy I was seeing hasn't stopped messaging me ever since I gave him my number and even when I told him I wasn't interested, he still kept going," you confessed, wanting nothing more than to chuck your phone against the wall to make it stop.

Jason thought for a moment. he could play this one of two ways. one: trying to give you mature, adult advice or two: being the petty teenager he used to once be. "wanna try to get him back?" he asked, quickly checking the communicators and cameras to make sure everything was still okay. you nodded your head a bit slowly, not knowing what he was hinting at.

Jason grabbed your phone, quickly taking a photo before writing a few thing down and sending it. your eyes widened, seeing what he wrote out.

"might wanna stop texting the girl who has no interest in you."

you gave Jason a look as he laughed, "what?" he asked, going back to the cameras and communicators. after a while, you got a message that they were heading back to the cave as others took their place. you clapped in tired happiness as you shut the computers down and put every thing into your bad so you and Dick could head out as quickly as possible.

"leaving already?" Jason poked playfully. you smiled, "I have work in the morning and I doubt you'd want to spend anymore time with me," you joked back. Jason grabbed your phone again, this time putting his number into your phone before shooting himself a message.

"you couldn't even wait a day?" Dick said as he got out of the batmobile. you shrugged playfully, "what can I say? your brother is hot," you responded, waving your phone with his number in it. Jason choked on his spit as Damian gagged, "gross, keep that shit to yourself," Damian yelled, slamming the door of the batcave as he made his way to his room.

you gave Jason a wink goodbye before getting into Dick's car.

"see ya soon sweetheart."

[stxleslyds]

Robin Jason, a friend and ally of the Titans.

PART 1.

Last Friday I was feeling extra rage-y after the news about the Titans mini with the Titans show line-up of heroes. I still think that a) Jason shouldn’t be considered a Titan or be in the team as Red Hood and b) that him going back to wearing a bat symbol on his chest is just bad but as @randomlut said there is a possibility of that book not being set in DC’s current universe and if that’s the case then okay, I will not complain about it anymore.

But this post isn’t about that Titans book it’s about Jason’s Robin’s appearances in volume two of the New Teen Titans!

Now, this won’t be an in-depth review of those issues from a story point of view, it will be a post in which I talk about Jason’s characterization and interactions with the Titans. Maybe I will even dive a little bit into why I think that the interactions that Jason and Roy have in those issues makes the relationship that they had in New52 very out of place.

Let’s begin!

·         NTT (1984) #19

Jason as Robin appears here only in the last page of the issue. After the current team of the Titans appears to be falling apart Donna calls Jason and others to help in a mission, this team that she puts together resembles the “original” line-up with Robin, Speedy, (Kid) Flash, Aqualad and Hawk.

·         NTT (1884) #20-21

Jason appears in the Titans tower along the OG Titans, when Donna finally tells them what the mission is all about (stopping Cheshire from interrupting a meeting) she asks if they are in on the job, Jason is not only excited about being there but about Batman actually letting him come all the way to the tower. A little bit of what Jason thinks or saw in Bruce is shown when Wally says that he “didn’t think the Batman could be thrilled by anything. He is always so grim.”

Basically, what Jason says is that the Bat isn’t that bad if you get to know him and that he cares about Jason’s education outside of vigilantism. Also, Jason seems to be grateful and very receptive of the things that Bruce taught him, he regards him as a very good mentor.

After everyone decides to help, they get on their jet. Here we have a very important interaction between Jason and Donna, she is telling him how she is feeling about the attitude of the rest of the team and about how she is a little bit lost now that she is in charge of the Titans and then she asks what Robin thinks about the whole thing, Jason is obviously thrilled once more, someone as experienced as Donna is asking him for his opinion? It blows his mind away! Batman never does that, he is always following his lead and never has a say on what they do so, to him, helping the Titans is only getting better and maybe he will ask the Bat to let him join them permanently.

Because they were talking Donna wasn’t paying much attention while flying and after they barely avoid crashing the jet, she apologizes to everyone and once more looks for reassurance with Jason, this time Jason is caught off guard but after Hawk teases him about his hesitation he tells her that “everything’s okay”.

When they arrive to Switzerland (where the meeting will be held) we have Jason’s first interaction with Roy Harper and him also slowly transforming into a burrito, that boy was cold and pissed off about it!

It’s really funny to me that Roy talking about Oliver’s pervy arrows is his very first interaction with Jason, who would have thought that a mad man would later make them besties?

They all go inside a building to get warm and for a while Jason is just chilling while the other Titans are all having an existential crisis, because here is the thing, Jason is a kid, he was presumably 14 here while all the other are in their twenties. Donna is having trouble with her new position as leader of the Titans, Wally is trying to live up to Barry, Garth is grieving his love, Roy is still very uncomfortable about being on a mission that involves Cheshire and Hank is just crazy. The others are trying to complete a mission while their real-life problems loom over them and Jason is just on an adventure with cool people.

Its not much later than Cheshire attacks the Titans, she first takes on Wally because he is her biggest threat and then detonates a bomb, now here I will give a little bit of context, Cheshire does not want to kill the Titans as of now, she just wants to incapacitate them because them being there is making her own mission more complicated, all I will say is that she doesn’t truly have villainous intentions and that she has a very weak spot for Roy.

Anyway, the bomb incapacitates Garth and Roy and Cheshire also managed to shoot Wally so only Donna, Hank and Jason are left standing to capture Cheshire, but here is the thing, Hank doesn’t want to capture her, he wants to kill her.

Jason has interacted very few times with Hank so far and it has always been Hank teasing him but now as Jason is going to fight Cheshire Hank interrupts him telling him that he will do “what has to be done”. Cheshire of course wont fall easily and I think that at this very moment she is thinking that killing Hank wouldn’t be a bad idea because he is going to mess her plans up! But not to worry as she is raising her gun Jason comes in to save his ass!

Jason is not a match for Cheshire and after that she quickly subdues him. But what’s important here is two things, first Jason doesn’t want or consider the idea of killing Jade, he just wants to capture her and bring her to justice, secondly, he doesn’t even want her to kill Hank, who has been violent towards every Titan and rude to Jason every single time that he has interacted with him. What I am trying to say is that this IS Robin Jason, he doesn’t think or act the same as Red Hood will in the future, he has his opinions on what punishments killers should get but he is not there to kill anyone himself.

There is this whole page where Donna beats Hank against a tree so he stops killing, because that’s not what the Titans do, she explains that if they do that then the public (that is already quite afraid of them) will just fear them more and they don’t need that, plus she believes that he is acting that way out of grief after losing his brother, as she is saying all of this though she is putting quite a lot of pressure on his chest and that might have ended up in her actually killing Hank if Jason hasn’t been there to stop her.

Donna is obviously not having a good time and after this she says that she “has had it” and that from now on Robin should “take command” because “its his group anyway”. Oh man…its clear to the reader that Donna is not having a good time being team leader but she also misses a certain person a lot. She is obviously not seeing Jason there, she is seeing Dick, the person that she is used to take orders from but he is not there.

Jason is aware of this, he might be a kid and might not have as many problems as the other Titans as of now but he is not a fool and he doesn’t want people to see someone else when they look at him, so he confronts Donna about what she just said/did.

Jason is just great in this scene; he just doesn’t want people that he admires to treat him as if he were someone that he isn’t. Just because Dick isn’t there doesn’t mean that he (because he is Robin) can replace him, they are not the same person and they do not have the same experience. He calls out Donna on her behaviour towards him and Donna being an adult takes responsibly for her actions and understands that ultimately, she was hurting Jason’s feelings. We have a kinda wholesome moment when they hug but because this is written by Marv Wolfman and he just can’t help himself, he proceeds to write Jason as a horny teenager. What a way to ruin the moment Marv…

Back to Cheshire, she is about to kick Wally’s face in when she decides to first tell him what he has to tell the others when they wake up, which is “Cheshire remembers”.

Wally tells the Titans Cheshire’s message but none of them truly understands what it means, Hank says that he doesn’t even understand why they are alive. Donna comes to the conclusion that Cheshire might want something from them and this is where Jason gives his thoughts, he says “Doesn’t matter what she wants. We take care of her. She’s a killer.”, its clear once more than although Jason (as Robin) wouldn’t kill anyone he does feel a certain type of way about criminals and wants them to be locked up.

After yet another verbal fight between Hank and Donna the Titans take a cable car to their next location, Jason is shown as exited about the view and the whole experience once more. When they arrive, they find Faraday (the guy that called Donna for help in #19) and he explains a bit more the situation but Jason once more is having trouble staying warm so he goes to the cable car tunnel nearby, but he doesn’t go alone, Roy goes with him because his “costume wasn’t made for this kind of weather either”, in this second interaction between these two we get to see Jason’s detective skills shine.

Jason has been watching Roy and he found his reaction to Cheshire’s message quite sus. Not only is he showing his detective skills here but he also said in a previous panel this: “The Batman keeps telling me to watch people’s eyes. And every so often I notice you become awfully agitated…like something was going on you didn’t want to be part of”.  Zdarsky, hey pal, I am talking to you, look at this dude! He read Roy like an open book, this is Robin Jason, he likes being Robin and he is brilliant at it, he is methodical because he learnt from paying attention and working with Batman, so, you sir are wrong, not only did UtRH disprove your dumb narrative but so does this interaction (along all his appearances in this book).

Roy is impressed by the kid, and yeah, he calls him kid because he is a kid…Roy is visibly older than Jason as he should, do you see it Lobdell? Yeah, there is no dubious age gap between those two as you made it seem. Roy is impressed because between both of them he is the one that is most experienced, not the other way around. How did Lobdell manage to make up a whole as run where not only were Roy and Jason close in age and besties but also Jason was better at vigilantism than Roy and Roy was the one being impressed. It’s wild, wild and bad.

Back to the issue, Jason taken out of the fight quite fast once more by Cheshire and she proceeds to talk to Roy, that’s where we find out that they were lovers and that she feels weak when she is around him because he makes her feel feelings but that’s not all, she tells Roy that he is “the man that fathered my child” …Oh and now she does want to kill him. That’s where #20 ends, so let’s see what happens with Jason in #21.

In the beginning of #21 Jason is conscious once more and when he hears Cheshire’s threat, he attacks her so she can’t shoot Roy, he also says this “Sorry ‘cat’ that’s a definite no-no. Don’t you know mommy’s and daddies should never fight” I, I don’t know why he had to say it like that…the 80s were weird. While Jason is being himself Roy is thinking “Don’t be cocky kid, Jade hasn’t got a sense of humour…” but because he wants to talk to Jade, he tells Jason to go, that he will handle Cheshire and he leaves.

Roy and Jade talk, Donna and Hawk are fighting bad guys and each other and at some point, Jason joins Garth and helps him take down a couple of guys, he also tries to make conversation with him but Garth is still not talking to anybody.

Cheshire tells Roy that he will never hear about their child again and that he needs to let her do her thing and stay out of it because he doesn’t understand what’s going on, Roy doesn’t do what she asks and she “poisons” him. Donna saves a guy that Hank was trying to kill. After Cheshire leaves Roy comes to the conclusion that she wasn’t there to kill the people from the meeting or that she poisoned him, but because they were there and everything went to shit now the people that were getting together are blaming the Titans for the interruption. The whole thing is a mess and the news channel are not nice about the Titans as a whole, but I am not interested in exploring that here. All you need to know is that the people that made Cheshire do what she did to the Titans were the Brother Blood people.

It’s on the jet that we see Jason again, he and the others are going back to the tower. Because the news are painting the Titans as bad when they are arriving to the tower Jason sees a lot of people protesting about them and he feels bad. This was his first job with the Titans and he is a kid, imagine how sad it would make you if you wanted to help and after getting the job done people were mad at you. But even though he is sad about that he takes time to ask Roy if he is okay after he sees him almost running away from the tower, he doesn’t get a response but he isn’t mad about it.

Jason’s stay with the Titans comes to and end and he says that he loved hanging out with them and is grateful for having been invited, he is so sweet!

·         NTT (1884) #24

Here, for some reason, we see Jason saying goodbye to the Titans again and unlike at the end of #21 Roy is there to see him leave.

I am not going to lie though; I liked this goodbye better it feels like it’s more complete than the other one. Here he says that Batman wants him back in Gotham but that if the Titans ever need him again all they need to do is call. He also mentions Nightwing which is funny because he will be called by Donna again in #26 to help the Titans get Dick back from Brother Bloods Church.

I am going to cut this part here because issues 26 to 31 have a lot of Jason content that I want to explore and I can’t put any more pictures here, also this post is already long as it is now!

I just love Jason’s little moments in these issues, him confronting Donna and reading Roy like and open book in #20 are my absolute favourite, I just think this is a nice way to kinda show how wrong some current characterizations of Robin Jason are and what better way to do that than reading and looking into some good stories.

Oh! Before I forget, in #21 Roy leaves the Titans’ tower to go see Jade and he actually gets to meet his daughter Lian for the first time, so yeah, that was a wholesome moment!

[jinx-jade]

The feeling of home Part 3: Video calls

“Hey Cass, have you seen… “ Dick froze, stopping mid-sentence at the sight in front of him.

“Oh My God! Hi! You must be Cass’s girlfriend!” Dick exclaims in excitement, causing the girl on the other end of the video call to giggle.

“Hello, I’m Cass’s girlfriend,” she began. “Sorry but I don’t have any more time to chat today. Maybe we can do a group video call later?”

“I’m sure all of us would love that!” Dick claimed with a grin.

“Je t'enverrai un texto plus tard mon amour” (I'll text you later my love), Cass’s girlfriend informs her lover with a smile.

Cass gave a bright smile and wave in return, a slight blush noticeable on her cheeks.

The second the call disconnected Dick let out a squeal.

“You two are so cute!” A grin clear on his features.

‘What did you need’ Cass asked in sign language, her blush still visible.

“Oh ya. Have you seen my Escrima Sticks? We have to patrol a bit and I can’t seem to find them. Any of them actually, including my spares.” Dick informs her as they start walking towards the cave.

‘Tim hid them as revenge for replacing his coffee with decaf’ Cass signs to him.

“Ugh. Of course, he did!” Dick groans in exasperation. “Thanks for the help, Cass! Can’t wait till we can officially meet your girlfriend!”

________________________

“Hey Alfred, can we have some popcorn? Something tells me this is gonna be fairly entertaining.” Jason claims as he sits down on the couch. He would go make the popcorn himself, but he was still banned from the kitchen.

“Of course Master Jason. Would anyone else like some refreshments or snacks before the call starts?” Alfred questioned.

The Waynes proceed to tell Alfred what food and drinks they wanted. Those who weren’t banned from the kitchen followed Alfred to help. There were very few Waynes still allowed in the kitchen, only Cass and Damian haven’t been banned, yet.

Once Cass, Damian, and Alfred had been in the kitchen for a bit, preparing the snack, Alfred turned his attention to Cass.

“There’s no reason to be so nervous, Miss Cassandra. I’m sure everyone will like your girlfriend.” Alfred spoke before focusing on preparing the popcorn.

Cass let out a slight whine. It was a mix between frustration, nervousness, and excitement.

“Tch. If this person was able to catch your attention and make you a smiling mess like Grayson with Kori, then I’m positive the rest of us will like her.” Damian states before walking out of the kitchen with a tray of snacks. Cass followed him out of the kitchen with her tray of snacks, Alfred not too far behind.

“Everyone ready?” Dick asked when everyone was settled into their usual spots.

Everyone gave some form of ‘yes we are ready’ Cass started the call.

…Calling...

A click was heard as the call screen was replaced with a person.

“Hello! It’s lovely to meet you all. I’m Marinette, Cass’s girlfriend.” Marinette informs them with a sweet smile.

“It’s nice to meet you as well Marinette. I’m Bruce Wayne, Cassandra’s adoptive father. This is my eldest Richerd, although he prefers to be called Dick. This is my third eldest Jason, my second youngest Tim, and my youngest Damian.” Bruce introduces.

When they were still planning the call on a day all of them would be free, Cass asked Bruce to introduce them to her girlfriend for her. All of the Waynes agreed to let themselves be introduced by Bruce since it made sense due to him being their father.

Marinette seemed to scan the room before nodding to herself. The acton seemed to make Cass let out a held-back laugh, confusing the Waynes.

Tim looked back and forth between the couple.

“What’s so funny?” He asked after not being able to figure it out.

“Hmm? Oh. Sorry, I’m used to Cass’s way of communicating. Pretty much, I just lined up who was who based on Cass’s description of you.” Marinette explains to Tim.

“Gasp. You talk about us!” Jason exclaims turning towards Cass.

Cass just gave him an eye roll for his antics.

“All good things, I hope,” Bruce says with a chuckle.

Marinette raised a brow in Cass’s direction, causing Cass to react by folding both of her lips inward and making a zip motion. Marinette had a smirk growing on her face while Cass had a glare that was slowly becoming more intense.

“Of course, all good stories.” Marinette states with a grin as Cass facepalmed.

“Stories? What kind of stories?” Bruce asked, looking in his daughter’s direction.

“Very entertaining stories if you must know, but shouldn’t you already know what the stories are about since you’re the ones who lived them?” Marinette asks, a grin still settled on her features.

“Renard faisant le chaos” (Fox making chaos), Cass huffs under her breath, causing Marinette to laugh.

“Nous faisons tous les deux le chaos. Non?” (We both make chaos. No?), Marinette states with a sharp smile that promised chaos, but with soft loving eyes.

Cass simply huffed and turned her head away. After a few seconds of silence, the couple started laughing, Cass not bothering to hold it back this time.

The Waynes didn’t seem to understand what just happened, even the ones who spoke French were confused. However, they didn’t mind the confusion, it was very rare for them to see Cass this happy. The Waynes all came to a silent agreement that they all liked Cass’s girlfriend and would be doing these family video calls more often.

The call continued late into the night, a few of the Waynes excusing themselves to ‘head to bed’.

After all, not all the bats could have the night off at the same time.

Tonight’s patrol consisted of Batman, Robin, and Red Hood since they had the easiest excuses to leave and go to bed.

Bruce had a meeting in the morning, Damian had school tomorrow, and Jason had a meeting with the W.E. security department. All of this was true, and technically Tim could have used the meeting excuse, but everyone knows Tim would never willingly go to sleep.

When Bruce, Jason, and Damian came back from patrol they were surprised with the rest of their family still being on the call.

Alfred made eye contact with them and shooed them off to bed.

“My Apologies, but I do believe we are now in the early morning hours. I believe everyone should at the very least, try and get some rest.” Alfred suggested.

Goodbyes and Goodnights were exchanged before the call ended.

While the Waynes moved towards their bedrooms, Alfred had a small smile playing on his lips.

‘The little guardian will surely be a good influence on them.’ Alfred thought before heading to bed himself.

[lightwing-s]

Got tagged by my lovely Nessie at @igotanidea

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

I'll be tagging: only @angelltheninth and @millyhelp because I have no one else to tag lol

How many works do you have on AO3?

It's a shame really that I've never been an AO3 user. I recognize that's the best place for a fic writer to be but I was always so used to tumblr that I feared migrating and not getting a new platform. But lmk if you think I should start publishing there as well

What’s your total A03 word count?

//

What fandoms do you write for?

I write mostly Dick and Jason, but I do all the BatBoys + Bruce, Narnia and now COD, but I’m also open to write for a few other Marvel, Harry Potter and other fandoms I also enjoy. So it’s always wise to ask me if I write a certain character because I might eventually do.

What are your top five fics by kudos?

//

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I love receiving comments, be it on replies or reblogs, they always bring a smile on my face wherever I am. However, sometimes I feel like I’d be bothering people if I replied (????), like idk, so I most commonly don’t but in my head I’m having full on conversations with everyone lol. I feel like I need to change this and interact more with my readers.

New Year resolution, perhaps?

What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Maybe 'I'll Show You' or 'Gravity', but I'm not even sure those count. I noticed I always make my fics have a happy ending.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I love happy ending fics, so I mostly write them. I’m not sure which one is the happiest though. 'Hello Officer' has a pretty good happy ending imo.

Do you get hate on your fic?

Thankfully not!

Do you write smut?

Yep, although I feel like it’s not my best quality. I’m getting better though, I feel, and it’s not as hard for me to write it as it once was.

Do you write crossovers?

Never been the biggest fan of the trope/genre

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Again, thankfully not.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not this one either

Have you ever co-written a fic?

Me and my friend had some plans a few years ago, but never came to do it. I’m open to doing it though.

What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

MonDler (Friends), Percabeth (PJandTO), Spitfire (Young Justice)

What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Gravity — Jason Todd x Reader

What’s your writing strengths?

Comfort moments, certain descriptions of feelings, and definitely backstories!

What’s your writing weaknesses?

I’ll put here: smut (I had never written it before last year, so I’m slowly getting better at it); vocabulary, as English is not my first language, and writing speed haha.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I feel like it has to be done in a way that will not get in the way of the reader’s reading, specially if they don’t know the language and might struggle to understand and keep up with the story. I like it to a certain degree, it has to be done write for it to work I guess.

First fandom you wrote for?

First fandom I wrote for and posted or the first I’ve EVER written for? Those are two different answers haha. The first question would be DC/BatBoys, the second would be One Direction.

ACTUALLY!!! I did have a One Direction tumblr with a few friends back in like 2014? They were probably first that I wrote for AND published lol.

Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Has to be "I want to k__ you". Starting from the title, I think I wrote it as perfectly as I could and finished it on a nice note.

[pandoraimperatrix]

First Aid Kit

DickKory | Post s03e04 | 1,4k

Let’s all pretend Dick and Kory are in a established relationship as they should.

---------

I am in love, and I am lost But I'd rather be Broken than empty Oh, I'd rather be Shattered than hollow Oh, I'd rather be By your side

First Aid Kit - Shattered & Hollow

Although she knew it was futile, Kory had been trying to wash away all her guilt - over Komand’r, over Gar, over feeling like she was unreliable and useless to everyone that made the mistake of trusting her – under the shower for the past hour. Thank X’hal for the seeming infinite reserves of hot water of the Wayne Manor. Her forehead against the tiles, her hair pined on the top of her head, her eyes closed, she tried to remember the techniques of concentration she learnt in Ookara, but the words said that day continued to replay echoing around and around inside her head like her own personal “All The Great Mistakes of Princess Koriand’r” radio station. It was discretion and his anti-killing sensibilities.

Honestly for a fighter so violent as himself, he had so many reserves about killing, as if his way of doing things didn’t usually involve crippling or disfiguring his opponent. In Tamaran dragging someone’s face or dislocating their limbs with the goal of causing pain was way more savage than a clean killing. But there was a lot of things she’d never get about Earthens. And Dick was especially hard to understand.

She was so distracted by her thoughts that she only noticed his presence when his arms closed around her. Kory shivered, his skin, always cooler than hers, was freezing.

“Where did you go alone all day?” she asked leaning behind.

“Working,” he said against her neck.

Read on AO3

His body was tense, but as Rachel would say, Dick was a pile of anxiety hiding under a trench coat, so that was usual. She tried to turn in their embrace, to guide him under the hot water, maybe work those shoulder muscles a bit so he’d feel better and don’t drive her insane all night with his turning and trashing. But Dick kept her in place, his hand gripping her hip hard. Weird. He usually liked her massages.

“How was the Commissioner?”

“I think she’s mad at me.”

“What did you do, Dick?” He held her a little firmer. She sighed. “Come under the water I feel like I’m been held by a fish, you are so cold.”

She could almost hear his eyes’ rolling, but he walked under the water with her, pressing their bodies closer as a by-product, Kory swallowed when she felt his penis twitch with the friction.

“Don’t wanna talk about it. Can we just stay this way a little longer?”

That bad, then? Kory felt her heart shrink a size. Dick had made so much progress in the past three months, he had been taking care of himself, letting her and the kids take care of him too, and she was proud of him. But there was no way she’d not worry about how Gotham and this horrible situation with him family could undo all his hard work. She sighed and bended her arm backwards to play with his hair, and Dick moaned softly and bit her ear.

“And your day?” he whispered inside her ear. “Did the kids treat you well?”

“They always do…” her train of thoughts dissolved as he cupped one of her breasts and began spreading kisses down her neck making her body become hot butter under his hands. Dammit Dick Grayson, she should be the one making him relax right now. But maybe, just maybe, he had a better day than hers, and considering her day involved being possessed by her evil little sister, physically abusing and kidnapping her own child against her will, and then the whole craziness that followed... Yeah, she doubted Dick could beat that. And as his hand lowered down her navel, she decided that he could take care of her if he wanted to.

She hissed when he parted her folds and bulked her rear towards him as he started rubbing her clit. Kory moaned loudly and bended forward pressing one palm against the tiled wall as her other hand reached back for Dick’s penis, stroking it up and down. Dick started spreading kisses on her back, starting from the nape of her neck, licking the water droplets on her smooth dark skin.

“Does it feel good, baby?” he asked sultrily.

A loud curse in Tamaranean was all she could manage to answer when he found the rhythm she liked, she was so close that she let of him to grab her own breast, flicking her nipple with her thumb, but when she was just about to cross the threshold, Dick let her go.

“Shit,” she heard him, but instead of horny he sounded in pain.

Stunned and frustrated, she turned around to understand what was happening, and was slapped in the face with the sobering image of Dick bleeding.

“You are hurt! Dick, what happened?”

He cursed again, gritting his teeth and answered without looking at her, “nothing.”

There was a huge gauze on his left shoulder, stained with blood and wet with shower water.

“Nothing? Are you kidding me? Look at me!”

He sighed and slowly rose his eyes from the ruined curative pad. He looked horrible.

Kory turned off the shower in an angry move that took every ounce of control she had to not break the faucet.

“You are fucking unbelievable.”

“Kory… Look-“ he tried.

“Oh, I am looking!” she snapped. “I can see that you were out there doing X’hal knows what, alone, and got yourself harmed. What was you plan, Dick? You really think I’d not notice this hugeass wound while you fucked me from behind? Do you think I’m that stupid? Or that I wouldn’t care?” She slid the shower glass door open and walked out, so angry that she didn’t think about covering herself with a towel. “I don’t know what would be worse.” She muttered. And as he didn’t respond, she added, “what the fuck happened?”

Dick waited a little longer to leave the shower too.

“I was shot,” he finally said, pulling the tape holding the wet gauze and throwing the whole thing in the bin under the sink.

She blinked in disbelief.

“So it just happened, then? Out of nowhere.”

He sighed again.

“Kory, please…”

“No,” she choked and horror took Dick’s expression. “I’m tired of this,” she continued with a trembling voice. “You brought us here because you needed to be around family. But you are hardly with us, you don’t ask for help, you won’t even say what happened to you,” she sniffled and wiped a tear. “I don’t know what to do here, Dick. And I hate it.”

He wanted to say he was sorry, he wanted to hold her and tell her he’d fix his ways from now on, that everything would be okay, but all he managed was handing her a towel.

“It was Jason… He shot me.”

“X’hal… Dick,” she accepted the towel and buried her face on it.

“I intercepted Crane, used him to lure Jason. I tried to reason with him, we fought. Babs sent cops in a helicopter. They shot us. Jason ran,” he had no idea of how he managed to tell the whole story in such small sentences, but instead of congratulating himself for his fantastic abilities of synthesis, he felt his throat get tighter and tighter. He made Kory cry. He fucked up really bad with Jason, betrayed Babs trust and made Kory cry. What the fuck was wrong with him?

She pulled her face up, eyebrows furrowed with sadness and frustration.

“Why didn’t you call us?”

He had to swallow down a few times to gather moisture to keep talking.

“I thought I had everything under control, and after Hank… I… I didn’t want to put you and the kids under more pressure.”

Her sadness hardened into anger and she threw the towel on his face and walked out the bathroom.

“You are full of shit, you know that, right?”

He picked up the towel and followed her.

“I’m sorry… I don’t know what to do either, Kory. I’m… I’m scared.”

She didn’t expect to hear that. She wanted it, but didn’t expect. Kory stopped and turned back to look at him. His lost expression, his bleeding shoulder. It was hard to be angry with him like that. Damn that man and his puppy eyes.

“I’ll get the first aid kit.”

He held her gaze for a while, and gave her a sad little smile.

“Thank you.”

I don’t know how to end this so I’m ending it here lmao. It’s really hard to me to write about an ongoing story. But the idea is doing the work Titans writers refuse to do by giving the characters time to connect. And give myself DickKory content because ficwriting if first and foremost self-indulgent goodness.

[saultnpeppah]

Back to You CH 7

PJ makes a discover that could jeopardize "the plan". 

 Read Back to You Chapter 7 now: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14077571/7/Back-to-You

PJ

Dinner is interesting. I don't mean that in a 'Every member of my family is a superhero so we always have interesting, sometimes weird, stories to tell' sort of way. I mean it more in a 'Something happened between Mom and Dad in the kitchen and now they are flirting from across the table without speaking' sort of way.

When Dad had finally made it to the table, his face was red and he tried his hardest not to even look at Mom seated across from him. Mom, of course, only smirked and continued to stare at Jason as he spoke, although we all saw her eyes moving to Dad every other minute.

By the time we all had our plates full, Tim and Dick had a tally going of how many glances Mom and Dad stole thinking no one noticed. So far we are at seven - three from Mom, four from Dad.

"So, Diana," Tim says as he stabs a piece of chicken off his plate with his fork. "What's it like being back on Themyscira after all these years?"

Mom swallows the bite of food she has been slowly chewing for the few moments. She's still nervous about being here with everyone, I can see it in her face. It probably doesn't help that Damian is two seats away from her, giving her the worst stare down in history. And believe me, I would know. I've been on the receiving end of one of those stares a time or two.

"It's different," Mom says after a while. She raises her glass of water to her lips and takes a sip, trying to stall a few more moments, hoping they don't ask her anymore questions about the island. The look on Dad's face tells me exactly why. It's a sore subject.

Tim eats the chicken from his fork and nods, accepting Mom's answer. I don't know why he doesn't pressure her to explain more, but when he turns to look at Jason, I can't help but think they know something I don't. There's no way they don't have more questions for Mom after not seeing her for this long.

"What about you, Bruce," Tim says as he turns to Dad. "How's the company doing?"

Dad takes a sip from his drink and shrugs. "It's doing well," is all he says, before he places his cup back onto the table. His eyes quickly shift up to Mom before he turns to look at me. I only raise an eyebrow. Dad wasn't lying. Wayne Enterprises has been doing really good. And now that their tech department has finished the designs to create realistic holograms, I can only suspect business will boom even more. He should be really proud. Why isn't he bragging about it?

Jason finishes the food from his plate and wastes no time going for seconds. "Diana," he says, calling Mom's attention to him. He carefully places another piece of chicken on his plate, smothers it in the delicious sauce Alfred has made, and cuts it into pieces. "So does the Queen have any time for other activities?" he asks, his devilish smile obvious.

Mom blushes and my ears grow red from embarrassment. I don't need to know what Mom does when I'm not around.

"Lots of reading, training, keeping this one out of trouble." Mom points to me and everyone around the table starts to laugh. My face gets red and I sink into my chair. This was not how I planned this dinner to go.

"Yeah, yeah," Jason says. "But has the Queen had any time to find….well, a Queen?" He raises an eyebrow and looks off to the side, trying to decide if that was the right way to frame the question.

Again, my ears get red and hot even though I know Mom has not bothered with a relationship since leaving Dad. Then again, there's six months out of the year that I am not with her. Who knows what she could be hiding.

Mom lets out a laugh and shakes her head. I look over at Dad and notice Jason's question has him waiting more intently for Mom's answer than someone who didn't care would be. When Mom shakes her head and says, "No," I can see his shoulders relax. He's jealous, or at least he was at the thought of Mom dating someone new.

"I don't have time," she explains.

Dick raises an eyebrow, but then shakes his head, deciding the question he wanted answered is best left alone. I know what he's thinking though. He wants to know what Mom could possibly be busy with. I understand. When I was little I always wondered what Mom could have possibly been busy with on an island without visitors, where they were capable of caring for themselves. But the Amazons are feisty, and with feisty women, come problems. Mom handles those problems.

"Bruce had a girlfriend."

Everyone turns to Damian. It is the first words he has said since he's sat at the dinner table. There is a small smirk on his face and I know he's brought up Dad's ex-girlfriend for one reason. He wants Mom to know he's moved on; we all know that's not true though.

Dad hasn't dated anyone else since I was five, and even then you could see it whenever they were together. It was never right. April was a nice woman and had a cool job as a detective with the Gotham City Police Department, but she and Dad only dated for maybe three weeks. When they broke up, she left Gotham.

Jason and Tim begin to laugh at the mention of April. They did not like her. On more than one occasion they had called her a psycho. Dick only smirks and shakes his head. He obviously knows more about her than the other two.

I turn to look at Mom who has shifted in her chair. Her eyebrow is raised, interested in hearing about the woman her ex-husband has dated. "Just one?" she questions. Her voice is light and sounds like she is going to laugh, and I am really confused.

Dick shrugs. "April was….interesting," he explains. "But don't worry, Diana. Bruce never truly seemed interested." He gives Mom a wink. She responds with a shake of her head. She is desperate to make everyone think she doesn't care about what Dad does, but we all see through it.

"It was four dates," Dad says, trying to explain himself. Not that it matters. "Now, can we please stop focusing on me," he says, his eyes shifting to me. "I think we have much more embarrassing tales about the birthday girl."

Everyone turns to look at me and I sink lower into my chair. This was definitely not how I imagined the night going, and for once I am regretting having everyone over for dinner.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

21:17

Luckily my embarrassment dies down when Alfred brings out dessert. I eat my chocolate chip cookie quickly in silence, watching as everyone excuses themselves from the table and goes their separate ways. Dick and Jason say their goodbyes and promise to be back in the morning, bright and early for the amusement park. Tim decides to let out some steam by taking over patrol for Dad, joining Damian. Mom helps Alfred clear the table and disappears into the kitchen, wanting to help the man clean the growing pile of dishes. Dad walks off without saying anything. I try not to overthink it.

I step out of the shower and grab the towel hanging on the wall, quickly drying myself off, careful to avoid the burn on my shoulder. When I'm done I pull on my robe and tie it around my waist, before I wrap my hair in the towel to keep it away from my face. I walk out of the bathroom into my room and plop onto the edge of my bed, letting out a sigh.

Tonight's dinner didn't go as expected. I wanted to see the spark between Mom and Dad, but somehow I became the focus. All the embarrassing stories of me made me want to disappear, but at least it got Mom and Dad laughing together. Even if it was at my expense.

The burn on my shoulder begins to sting and I know I should visit Alfred for another bandage. I sit up from my bed and dress in the pajamas I threw on the top of my mattress before I jumped in the shower. When I am done, I sprint out of my room and into the dimly lit hallway in search of Alfred.

I walk down the stairs, landing on the bottom with my bare feet, listening for any sign that anyone else is out and about. Damian and Tim should still be out on patrol. Dad will be down in the cave, working his second job until my brothers get back. Alfred will either be finishing up cleaning or getting ready for bed - now that he's older he likes his sleep a lot more than waiting for Dad to come home every morning. And Mom….well I don't know what Mom could be doing, but I don't see or hear her around.

When I am sure no one else is around, I take a step toward the hall that'll lead me toward the library, knowing it is where Alfred spends the last hour before he settles for bed. It was the one room of the house, beside the kitchen, where he and Mom would sit together, laughing at stories of Dad as a kid, sharing secrets. It is also the room Alfred and I have spent hours away from everyone else. It was there he had taught me about Dad and the work he did in Gotham, with the League. It was there he had told me about how Mom and Dad had worked together for years before they fell in love. It was in the library Alfred had snuck the first of many photos of Mom and Dad together to me, telling me the fond memories he had when the family was whole. Unfortunately, it was also in that room where Alfred refused to tell me what happened between Mom and Dad, no matter how many times I had asked.

I don't understand why he tries to change the topic every time I ask. It's not like I don't know they aren't together. Hello, I live in two totally different worlds for half the year….of course I know they aren't together. But I want to know why. I want to know what happened to them. I want to know if Mom left on her own, or if Dad told her to leave. I thought getting them in the same room would give me some clue to the answer, but it's only made things more confusing. Dad, as much as he tries to avoid admitting it, likes having Mom around. His shoulders aren't so tense, he smiles more. He always has that goofy smile on his face when he thinks no one is looking. He's totally in love with her.

Mom's a bit harder to read. I spend more time alone with Mom on the island, but she rarely talks about Dad. Even when she does, her face stays the same. I don't know how she's been feeling the last day. Hopefully it's the same as Dad.

The sound of shuffling behind a door breaks my focus. I stop walking toward the library and turn, noticing the door to Dad's study is cracked open. A light shines behind, filling the hall with a little more light than normal. Dad must be upstairs instead of down in the cave then. I wonder why.

I sneak toward the door, watching through the crack. Dad sits behind his desk, his eyes focused on the open folder on his desk. He reads through the stack of papers in the folder. He twirls a pen in his hand as his eyes scan the papers, stopping every so often to scribble on the papers.

Curiosity gets the best of me and I knock on the study door before I can stop myself. Dad looks up at the cracked door and places the pen down on his desk. "Come in," he calls.

I push the door open and flash him a smile. "Hi," I say, giving him a small wave.

Dad only gives me a small smile in return. He closes the folder on his desk and shoves it a few inches away. "PJ," he says, "what's up?"

I shrug. "How are you doing?" I ask.

Dad shrugs and leans back in his chair. "I'm fine, PJ," he answers.

I nod and walk up to Dad's desk, leaning against the edge as Dad continues to watch me. "So, I'm sorry about yesterday," I say. "I should have told you Mom was coming earlier."

In all fairness, I should have told Dad the moment Antiope dropped me off in November. But I was worried he'd do anything to keep from seeing her. In my mind, it was easiest to spring it on him than to let him know what I had been planning with Alfred for almost a year.

Dad shrugs. He crosses his arms over his chest and bounces in his chair as he thinks of what to say. "I would have liked to know sooner," he says after a moment. "But I will admit, it's nice seeing your mother."

I watch as Dad's face relaxes. Something tells me he isn't as angry as I thought he would be, but still something is off. "Can I ask you a question?" Dad pushes his chair back from the desk and stands. He leans on the cabinet against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest. He gives me a small nod. "What happened with you and Mom?"

Dad takes a deep breath and leans harder into the cabinet. He's quiet as he shifts against the cabinet and raises his shoulders. "I know Alfred has told you," he says.

I let out a sigh. Alfred has talked about Mom many times. He's told me of when Mom first came and joined the League, how Dad fell in love with her the moment he met her. He's told me about their relationship, the ups and the downs, about their perfect wedding. He's told me how they balanced each other; Mom kept Dad from falling too far into the dark and he kept her grounded when she had expectations set too high. They were the perfect partners. So no one really understood what happened to break them up - including Alfred. Or so he says.

"Not really," I answer truthfully. "He hasn't told me anything. He says that's a conversation for you two to have."

Dad lets out a chuckle and shakes his head. "It's a long story, one I don't think you're old enough to understand," he answers. He stands up straight and pulls his vibrating phone from his pocket and checks the screen to see who is calling him so late. He looks up at me and he must see something on my face that he doesn't like, because he lets his phone vibrate a few seconds longer than he normally would.

"It's in the past, PJ. There's no point going over it again."

Dad turns and walks toward the large bookshelf in the corner of the room as he answers the phone. I let out a sigh of anger. I need to know what happened in order to fix it. I need to fix it. I watch as Dad rearranges the bookshelf, talking quietly to whoever is on the other end. Whoever it is, it seems like a very intense conversation.

I look around Dad's study. Instantly my eyes settle on the portrait that hangs on the wall, the one of Grandmother and Grandfather and Dad. He's just a kid in it, right before they died, but he loves it.

Four years ago Dad sat me in this very room and told me the importance of that framed picture on the wall. That was also the night he told me he was The Batman.

My eyes move from the portrait to the desk, right to the folder that Dad was working out of before I came into the room. Looking up to make sure Dad is still turned away and on the phone, I reach over and grab the folder. I know I shouldn't be snooping, but I'm too curious for my own good. I quickly open the folder and read the title on the front page.

Petition for the Dissolution of Marriage

What's this? I don't know what 'dissolution' means, but as I flip through the papers on the desk I see another word I know: Divorce. These are divorce papers. But why? Dad's not married.

I look through the pages, my eyes widening when I see Mom's name on the last few pages. These are divorce papers for Mom and Dad. I thought they were already divorced? They're still married? What the heck!

"Divorce?!" I shout, my voice coming out louder than it should.

Dad turns to face me. His eyes grow wide when he sees I have the folder open in my hands. "I'll have to call you back," he whispers into the phone, before he ends the call and shoves his phone back into his pocket. "PJ-"

"You and Mom aren't already divorced?" I ask, cutting him off.

Dad walks over and plucks the folder out of my hand. He shoves it into the top drawer of his desk and closes the drawer. "No," he says, "your mother and aren't divorced."

I cross my arms over my chest and huff. "You two have been married this whole time?" Dad nods. "So then why divorce now?"

Dad shrugs. "Your mom and I haven't had a relationship for over a decade. Our marriage ended and she went back to the island. We just never filed them." I don't buy it. I know he's hiding something. "Now that she's back, we just need to sign everything and move on."

"But….but you said it was nice to see Mom," I say, trying to reason with him.

Dad nods again. "It was. But things are complicated and it's time your mother and I put all this behind us."

Put all what behind them? Their marriage? Their lives together? He does realize I'm a part of that life together, whether he wants to admit it, right? Or am I just a reminder of the woman he lost? Does he even want me here? Or is he happy when I leave for six months, giving him time to move on.

My mind is moving a million miles a minute. This is not supposed to happen. This is not part of the plan. I turn and run out of the room, ignoring Dad as he calls my name, slamming the door shut behind me. I run down the hall and up the stairs, away from Dad and his study, stopping only when I slam into someone. I look up and see Alfred.

"Miss Penelope," he says. He places a hand on my unburned shoulder and pulls me into a hug. "What is the matter?"

I feel something on my top lip. I don't even know I'm crying until Alfred reaches down and wipes the tears from my face with his thumb. "It's Dad," I answer. I take a deep breath and wipe the rest of the tears off my face with the back of my hand. "Alfred, please tell me what happened with my parents."

Alfred stares down at me. He lets out a small sigh but nods. "Okay," he says. He gently nudges my shoulder and says, "I'll tell you everything I know."

We walk down the hall to my bedroom. Once inside, Alfred quickly bandages my shoulder and then tucks me into my bed. "It was the night after your first birthday," he begins as he takes a seat on the edge of the bed, settling in to tell me everything that happened between my parents.

[ddagent]

Superstar

SUPERSTAR: Actor/Celebrity AU Part of the “30 Promptathon”.

When Brienne arrived at the production offices of Oathkeeper that morning, it was as if a group of White Walkers had been spotted on the horizon. Staffers were fielding call after call; production assistants were sprinting through the corridors. Brienne’s tea nearly went flying as one of the runners, a young lad named Podrick, nearly barrelled into her. 

“S–sorry, Ms Tarth. It’s–it’s mayhem today.”

“So I can see, Pod. What’s happened?” 

His eyes went wide. “You haven’t heard? Tarly’s been sacked. They’re bringing in a replacement.” 

With that bombshell, the young lad returned to his quest. As her heart sunk into her stomach, Brienne made her way through the labyrinth of offices towards her own cubicle. Her wall-mate, Hyle Hunt, was griping over the sudden change in showrunner. But, then, he had been good friends with Randyll Tarly. He and the other male writers went out every Friday night while Brienne was often left picking up continuity issues in their scripts or fielding complaints from the higher-ups that Tarly didn’t want to deal with. 

Brienne was not upset to see the back of him. She was, however, concerned to see the front of the new showrunner. 

“TARTH. WRITER’S ROOM, FIVE MINUTES.”

Putting down her tea and last season’s scripts, Brienne merely nodded at Connington. Four minutes later, she was joining the rest of the writers – all-male, all wankers – in the writer’s room. Today they had meant to begin planning season three of Oathkeeper, which had gained some traction over the summer. Now – now who knew what they would be doing. 

Brienne took a seat at the farthest end of the conference table while Hyle, Ed, Ben, and Ron Connington filtered through. Hyle was the first to speak. “So, do we know who they’re bringing in yet?” 

Connington scoffed. “Probably a woman. The network probably want us to appear ‘diverse’.”

“We’ve got Tarth for that.”

“Tarth doesn’t count.” 

Brienne refused to rise to their bait. She had, in the early days. She’d gone to Tarly’s office after work and pled her case more evenings than she could count. But he hadn’t listened. Had, in fact, insinuated that if she continued to complain she would be out on her ear. And Brienne needed this job. More so, she wanted this job. She loathed to think what Lady Alys, based off the great Ser Brienne of Tarth (a very distant relation) would become when left to these troglodytes. 

They were still making guesses as to who their new showrunner would be, each more offensive than the last. Brienne caught the tail-end of Hyle’s suggestion: “I bet he’s some snot-nosed kid whose daddy got him the job.”

“Actually, my father would prefer I worked in the King’s Landing Stock Exchange than in television.” A smooth, silk voice cut through the chatter. Brienne lifted her head to see the most beautiful man she had ever seen. “Jaime Lannister. Ser Jaime Lannister, actually.”

The writer’s room went quiet in the presence of their new showrunner. Gods, Jaime Lannister was a legend in cinema. He had produced some of the greatest historical epics, earning himself three Dayne awards and a knighthood for honours in filmmaking. He also had a reputation for being difficult to work with. If he liked you, you would have a career spanning decades. If you crossed him, the closest career in film you’d get is taking tickets at the local multiplex. 

Her shoulders sagged. At least she enjoyed the smell of popcorn. 

Lannister took a seat at the head of the conference table and leaned back, assessing his new writers. “As I’m sure you’ve heard, Randyll Tarly is no longer with the show.” 

“He was a great showrunner,” Connington offered. 

“He was a dick who had multiple allegations made against him and had a history of covering up complaints from female staffers. He will not be missed.” Lannister smiled at them; his teeth bared. “You should all be happy to know that I’m a great fan of the show. Well, the source material. I have all the books; read them cover to cover.” 

Ben shrank in his chair. “We’re–we’re trying to tell our own version.”

Lannister nodded. “That I can see. The actress playing Queen Cerelle. Has she read the books?”

“Well, we—”

He raised a well-manicured hand, cutting Ben off at the knees. “Get her copies of the books. I want her to have read them cover to cover before we begin shooting. Who is in charge of writing Lady Alys’ storyline?” 

All heads swivelled towards the end of the table. Brienne sighed; she had honestly expected it to be longer before they all threw her under the bus. “That would be me, Mister Lannister. Brienne Tarth.” 

Jaime Lannister stared; swallowing hard. “The scene between her and Ser Jason where she saves his life from the Northerners. That was you?”

Before she could respond, Connington intervened. “We’re looking to bring Ser Jason back to his sister early on in season three. The audience like the incest storyline.” 

“No, they really don’t.” Lannister sunk his hands through his thick head of hair. “I was afraid of this. These books are...sacred. The story of the Blue Knight and Goldenhand the Just isn’t just a legend, it’s an integral part of Westerosi history. And it’s been left in the hands of four ‘dudebros’ and a woman with a degree in Ancient History and a Masters in Creative Writing.” He huffed out a breath. “You’re all fired.” 

The table erupted, then. Shouts and insults flew through the air although Jaime Lannister remained unbothered by them all. None of them had noticed the man in the doorway until he began escorting the writers out. Connington tried to put up a fight but his face was inevitably smushed against the fibreglass door. Rising to her feet, Brienne decided to leave with at least some shred of dignity. 

She made it three steps before Lannister addressed her. “Ms Tarth, I’d like the proposed storylines for season three on my desk in two hours.”

“But I thought—”

He met her gaze for the first time. If Brienne was a different kind of woman, she’d have sworn his breath caught. “—you’re free to go if you wish, Ms Tarth. But I hope you don’t. I hope you stay here. Stay with me.”  

If Brienne was a different kind of writer, maybe she’d have followed her colleagues out the door. But she wasn’t. She stayed. 

[itsmeevie01]

Bio!Dad Bruce Day 3- Siblings

While Marinette and Bruce had been spending the last few years getting to know each other, he had barely said anything about her to his boys. Many times, he would wait until everyone was busy and slip off to Paris. Three months ago, when he had taken Marinette around Gotham, had been the first time she had come to his home. Of course, she had met Dick, but only briefly. Now, as Thanksgiving approached, Bruce wondered if it would be too much to ask her to join him. To ask her if she wanted to meet her brothers. 

After hesitating one last time, he hit the dial button on his phone and held his breath. This would go either really well, or really, really poorly. When he had first gone to discuss with Tom and Sabine, he had told them stories of his boys. Now, he wondered if he had made the right choice to hold off on introducing them.

“Hello? Bruce? Is everything alright?” Sabine’s worried voice at the other end of the line brought him out of his thoughts.

“Sabine, yes, everything is fine. I was calling because I had a question for you.” At the woman’s affirming hum, he continued. “would Marinette be interested in joining me and my family in celebrating Thanksgiving this year? I know that you don’t, but I thought it might be the perfect time to introduce her to the others.” There was a pause on the other end of the line, and he waited. Bruce started to tap his fingers anxiously but refused to open his mouth. If he did…who knows what he would say. The sound of Tom and Sabine talking in French filtered down the line and Bruce worked to keep his mind away from their conversation. Although he wanted his daughter to join them, he refused to eavesdrop on the discussion. At the sound of Sabine clearing her throat, Bruce turned his mind back to the situation at hand.

“Bruce, we’ve talked it over and although we have no problems with Marinette joining you, we would like to leave the final decision up to her.” The man agreed and as both parties hung up the phone, he reminded himself to be positive about the whole thing.

When her parents told her what her Father had proposed, Marinette had been hesitant. Just a few weeks ago, she had received the Ladybug miraculous. The girl was a hesitant hero, but that didn’t stop her from protecting the people who had set their faith in her. After extensively talking the situation over with Tikki, her Kawmii, the teen announced to her parents that she would like to go. That evening, Tikki had slipped out after the girl was asleep and had visited the Guardian. When she had returned, there were a pair of glasses accompanying the small being.

 Two months later, the small girl has pulling a suitcase behind her as she hurried through the airport. Although she had arrived in plenty of time, she wanted to be at her gate with time to spare. International travel was not the time to be late. As she sat there, her sketchbook in hand she glanced about. Fall was one of her favorite seasons. To those who didn’t know her, it always came as a surprise, but the accessories were always so diverse, and the colors always made her look fantastic. Just because pink was her favorite color didn’t mean she didn’t have other things in her closet.

A call for her gate pulled Marinette out of her thoughts and she gathered her things and clung to her sketchbook as she got in line to board. Since her father had paid for the ticket, she had not had the chance to dissuade her father from buying her a first-class ticket. At least, she consoled herself, she got to be comfortable on her 8-hour fight.

When she walked out of the Gotham airport, Marinette looked for the man her father had introduced as his butler (it was times like that when she remembered that her father was rich). When she saw him, she hurried over,

“Hello, Alfred!” the older man smiled down at her a gently took her suitcase from her and guided her out to the car that was waiting for them. As she climbed in, Marinette noticed a sleepy teen a who couldn’t have been more than a few years older than herself sitting in the back seat. Alfred gestured for her to settle in as he moved around to the trunk to load her luggage.

“Master Timothy!” When Alfred called the boy to attention, Marinette used the distraction to check on Tikki the small being gave her a thumbs (flipper??) up and the girl leaned tiredly back against her seat, happy to be out of Paris. Now that he was done with his discussion with Alfred, the boy (Timothy?) turned to her with a smile.

“Marinette, right?” at her nod his smile grew, “it’s nice to finally meet you! The last time you were here this summer I was traveling and wasn’t able to meet you.” As the car made its way towards the manor, Tim started to pull her into conversation. First, on her interests and hobbies, then they started to devolve into things they had found on the internet.  By the time they made it to the manor, she was comfortable with Tim (wait-he was her brother. A brother!) and he had started to become more aware of their surroundings as well.

While Alfred brought her things up to the room she used when visiting her father, Tim guided her into a den that was hidden away in the maze-like manor. There, Marinette was met with her oldest brother, Dick Grayson, as well as a guy with a shock of white hair. As she made her way fully into the room, she noticed a girl with blonde hair sitting happily inside as well. The group got up as they entered, Dick bounding over to wrap her in a hug while the other two gathered nearby to greet her afterwards. When her brother (!) released her form his hug, the other guy strode forward, a tense smile on his face.

“Marinette?” she nodded, suddenly very nervous. “Nice to meet you, I’m Jason.” He flashed her a more genuine smile before stepping back. The blond had just hurried up to her when the telltale sound pf her father’s steps could be heard outside the door. As soon as he had cleared the doorway, she flew at him. the aww that she was sure came from Dick just made her smile victoriously.

The next day, the family of five (plus the blonde who she learned was named Stephanie) set about decorating the manor under the direction of Alfred. Dick cracked Jokes and Jason grumbled under his breath as he was handed a garland of leaves and told to help Marinette as she used her artistic eye to her advantage.

As they chattered, she turned to her father “why are we decorating for fall still, if it’s almost winter?” her question caught the attention of the others and as Bruce smiled at her, Dick jumped at the chance to explain the holiday to her.

As he talked, he started to light up in excitement. Marinette smiled at the way he emoted and brought what he was saying to life.

The next day, Thursday dawned bright and clear. The air had a nip to it and as Marinette settles outside to enjoy the early morning sunshine, she took a deep breath and sighed in happiness. Three years ago, she had found out who her father was. Now, she was here with the rest of his family (!) And was going to celebrate her first holiday with them.

To her, it made it all a little more real.

When Dick came out to get her, he brought news. Over the next few hours, the rest of the family oils arrive. He smiled at the way she lit up and cautioned her that they could be a bit much at times. As they made their way back inside the manor, he made sure she knew that if she ever got overwhelmed, he would help make sure that she was comfortable in the chaos that was to come.

i just wanted to hop over and let y’all know that this probably will be a two parter that i will finish later this month. I’m sorry the ending was a little rough...

[samiralula01]

Jason Todd is the Anti-Batman

* A pointless rambling of the relationship and parallels between Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd.

Picture this opening scene: There are two boys in a dark alley.

One is dressed in an expensive suit with a tie his dead father helped him with only earlier that evening. His hands are stained red with the same blood now puddled on the grimy cement. His face is in shock.

The second boy is dressed in tattered jeans and hoodie. His hands are stained with tires grease and are clutching a tire iron. His face is in shock.

Decades later, there are two more scenes to consider.

A seriously injured man sits slumped over in his father’s study. Without warning, a bat crashes through the window, and everything falls into place. He now knows what he needs to do.

Elsewhere, an emotionally distraught teenager is curled up into a fetal position on a hotel room floor. Heart wrenching cries can be heard from him. But it is only momentary. He now knows what he needs to do.

These two individuals are Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd. While they are both broken and determined men, Batman is a hero. The Red Hood is not. He is the anti-Batman and this is why.

Two Boys in an Alleyway

Despite similarities in their stories’ early themes and elements, Bruce and Jason came to walk down very different paths. One of justice, and the other vengeance. Batman is determined to protect the innocent and Jason more so on punishing the guilty. Both their ideologies have intrinsic flaws, of course, and will naturally clash often. But this wasn’t always the case.

Before they became a father and son perpetually in mourning for who they once were and what could have been, Bruce and Jason were remarkably similar. The two are cut from the same cloth and Bruce knows this better than anyone else.

In the Dumpster Slasher three-part story line, (Batman #414, #421, #422) Bruce becomes emotional. Violent. He sits in the batcave alone that night and contemplates his emotions.

“Nearly blew it. I let it get too personal. Lost my detachment...nearly lost control. Almost beat Cutter to death. Wouldn’t have been any big loss.”

Only one issue later, at the end of this story arc, Robin is out on the streets and becomes angry when he happens upon a pimp is threatening a prostitute with a knife. Now, I want you to compare his line here to Bruce’s and note what Jim Gordon said to him as well.

Batman: "I think he’s had enough, Robin. What were you trying to do, kill him?" Robin (Jason): “Would it’ve been that big of a loss if I had?”

It is important to note here that Batman is not worried or upset just because Jason roughs up a pimp. That would be hypocritical considering his own earlier actions. If anything, it’s because one of the main reasons Batman even takes in these kids, these ‘robins,’ is because he doesn’t want them to be like him.

And Jason was acting just like him.

Jason can and has screwed up and failed due to his own actions, but it was never the reason Batman became upset with him. His reactions in the comics when Jason does things like running ahead and ‘jumping the gun,’ are more like this:

He either makes a teaching moment out of it or is attempts to understand Jason’s reasons in doing any such thing. When Bruce does become harsh in his discipline, it’s either when he feels as though Jason has endangered his own life or as I said, he acts too much like him.

While there are quite a few more similarities between Bruce and Jason that makes them alike, such as both being introverted and interested in obtaining all sorts of knowledge that they might not even feel is relevant, they are both, at the core of their characters, deeply caring and compassionate people.

The differences only start to show with how they act on it.

The Not-So Dynamic Duo?

“What happened to you as a child, the terror, the pain, the horrors (...) you were broken, and I thought I could put the pieces back together. I thought I could do for you what could never be done for me. Make you whole.”

Hot take. Jason Todd is a villain and is best written as a villain. 

Not in that campy way like he’s written during Dick and Damian’s Batman and Robin run while wearing that stupid pill-headed hood, (although, I grant he has a few lines that are enjoyable to read) but in all his serious, vengeful and downright brutal motives. 

The Red Hood is the perfect Batman villain because he’s so different from what the widely perceived perfect foil to the controlled and disciplined Bat is...the Joker. 

The Red Hood was vengeance at its purest. It is justice without being tempered by mercy. It is the rage of victims who were forgotten to become statistics. While other vigilantes wait for a cure, hope for rehabilitation, and pretend their system works, the Red Hood is a man of no such faith.

And this makes him a villain. And a damn good one.

During the Red Hood’s time as a crime lord in Gotham, he goes around blowing up buildings. He throws grenades into trucks. He mows down his competition with gunfire. Batman comes upon the bloodied hanged corpse of a man he was finished interrogating. 

But what is so compelling about this all is that before all the murder, all the guns and explosions, Jason Todd was a very different little boy. And all the great and memorable villains start that way.

The Joker is not someone you’re meant to sympathize with or even understand. In fact, I find him more terrifying because he’s unknown. He has no backstory (unless you want to believe the one he gave in Killing Joke, but the clown has a new story for every face he meets) and seemingly does what he does for a laugh of all things.

Jason Todd is in pain. He’s traumatized. Betrayed. Buried. Replaced. He is no one’s son because his father abandoned him.

Once upon a time, Jason Todd was a boy who saved himself. One of the biggest lies that Batman himself perpetuates is that he saved Jason from a life of crime. He tells Alfred that Jason was always dangerous. Bruce simply took him off the streets before he could be any worse.

But I don’t believe that’s true.

Jason grew up surrounded by crime, poverty, substance abuse and yet this amazing kid saved himself everyday by making a conscious choice to be kind and care about school, care about keeping his mother alive for over a year when he was just a child himself. That amazing kid was magic. 

Jason Todd as Robin was magic.

“Jason smiles. A bright smile. The kind Robin, the Boy Wonder should have.”

A good portion of his character’s assassination was in order to push the Tim is the perfect Robin idea. It was editorial decisions. The same ‘suits’ who insisted that Tim Drake be the Robin in the New Adventures cartoon despite having Jason’s backstory and personality. But I digress on that. 

Jason Todd was an introverted, studious, and emphatic person. He wanted to make friends with other kids his age even though he was a loner at heart. He joined the school baseball team and was a class officer, even if his training kept him from most social interactions.

He was also very much in tune with non-verbal cues and small changes in the environment around him. He was a thoughtful person who could be found admiring the stars or passing by scenery. When he teams up with the New Teen Titans, we get to see these aspects of his personality:

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful before. We’re actually riding above the clouds.”

“Every so often, I notice you become awfully agitated...like something was going on you didn’t want to be part of. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

It didn’t take Bruce long to fall in love with this boy and ask to legally adopt him. He found him to be smart, thoughtful, quick at learning and funny as hell. Their first meeting opens with Batman laughing in the very same alley his heart was ripped out decades earlier. 

Even in the Rebirth canon, (RHATO #48) we see that Bruce is already set on taking in Jason while he’s still with Ma Gunn’s school. He likes this kid. A lot.

“Butler, actually. You’ll meet him someday, I’m sure.”

Jason Todd was happy. Most of the time. Unfortunately, he still wrestled with depression and would sleep all day on occasion and could be found crying hidden away on his own, withdrawn from the concerned Bruce and Alfred.

In A Death in the Family, Alfred and Bruce sit down and discuss Jason’s worsening mental health, particularly after the Diplomat’s Son where Jason becomes witness to sexual assault, suicide and the failings of both Batman and the GCPD to protect innocent people. Barbara, his tutor, someone he cared about and got along with, is also shot a few months earlier.

Bruce thinks Jason has become suicidal. Alfred does not disagree with this theory and supplements it with things he’s observed himself about the ‘lad.’

“I’ve come upon him, several times, looking at that battered old photograph of his mother and father, crying. When he’s seen me, he’s hidden the picture and left the room, refusing to talk.”

It is then that Jason discovers the truth about his mother at the worst possible time, when he’s not even thinking straight, and thus leads way to the tragedy that will be his murder at the hand’s of the Joker.

The Curse of Jason Todd

“Do you have any idea what you have done?! Do you? You have no inkling of what you’ve created -- what you have unleashed! You have set free a curse upon this world!”

Red Hood: Lost Days, which depicts Jason’s dark post-resurrection origin, opens with Ra’s al Ghul bellowing this line, the steam from the Lazarus Pit still rising off of him. 

I’m not going to analyze this line, I’m just using it to supplement a point of mine I hope I’m getting through well enough. The Red Hood is a compelling, tragic villain. He is similar to Batman in ways that Bruce always knew and may have even feared because of how intimately he knows his own deepest, darkest thoughts. Jason is the perfect foil as an antagonist for him because of what he represents to Bruce.

And it’s not his anger, or his rage, or even his brutality. 

It’s his compassion. His caring. His emotions. And how they can open up the worst parts of themselves. 

Both are motivated by preventing whatever trauma happened to them from ever happening to anyone else. They both trained for years with this motivation. And they’ve both acted out on the very person who inflicted their trauma onto them.

Here’s where their paths start to differ, however, and what separates them with a line of morality.

They both get angry. They both care so damn much. About Gotham, about innocents, about each other. They both get too emotionally invested and deal with consequences related to that. To manage with that, Bruce shuts down. He creates all these choices, rules and symbols. He uses every ounce of his self control to keep them. 

Bruce Wayne is not a good person. He forces himself to be with discipline and will. He chooses to be a good man and constantly pushes himself to live up to that. Because it’d be too damn easy to be just like the Red Hood.

Jason doesn’t understand that. Because no matter what Bruce had done or will do, he doesn’t hate him. He can’t. Despite his denial of the fact to different people, he still thinks of Bruce as his father. This great figure that so many others revere and are even intimidated by.

He’s not the only bat-kid to think of Bruce in this light despite the fact that the man is not. It took Dick years to overcome that perception. Tim only just started to begin understanding this true nature after his own father was murdered. 

But even if he did understand his (once)father, he still became the complete opposite of him despite so many early parallels. He doesn’t hold back his words and emotions, he doesn’t go into a state of controlled dissociation or emotional disengagement.

Jason Todd—the Red Hood—is Batman without all his rules and control. In a way, he’s what the darkest part of Batman himself wants to be. Jason does what Batman can’t do when it’s needed.

Because in Batman’s book, life beats out justice. Even if he could take down abusers and murderers, he won’t. He will choose saving and protecting lives over the apprehension of killers...he always does.

Batman is justice. Red Hood is vengeance.

Jason is a victim’s fantasy. He punishes and kills the guilty. Something Batman won’t do.

He is the anti-Batman for better or for worse.

[stxleslyds]

Who do you think should be a love interest for Red Hood/Jason Todd?

Oh, Anon, you sent me a very difficult question. I have been wanting to talk about my thoughts on love interests or ships when it comes to Jason but I always end up getting scared and don’t do it. But because you sent me this ask and I want to give you an answer, I will actually speak (write) my mind.

I like ships, I enjoy romances within stories, the name of my blog is based on one of my favourite ships from a tv show that I liked. I have also reblogged content that is about another ship that I like from an animated show but when it comes to the DC comics characters that I like (Dick Grayson and Jason Todd) I actually dislike romances and the idea of love interests, a lot. In Jason’s case, I actually hate the idea of him having love interests.

And that’s because of several reasons, but I believe they can all be enclosed into one thing, Jason doesn’t seem to be into romantic relationships or established romantic relationships. Every time they put him in one of those things start to make less sense, I will explain it more in detail because I will be going through every single relationship that was, hinted at, teased or official for Jason in the last eleven years. (Yup, I have found every single relationship that Jason has had forced and/or out of place).

This is, of course, what I think, you are allowed to think otherwise.

JASON TODD AND LOVE INTERESTS.

New 52.

Essence, Jason’s first kiss and some other things.

Essence was, as per New 52 onwards, the first person that Jason had a relationship with. (RHatO vol.1 #7). They met back in the All-Castle and with her, he said that he felt, for the first time after being resurrected “alive”. Yeah, it is a little bit weird, let’s suppose that Jason was 17 when he first met her, and when I say “other things” I do mean it, the panels are never explicit but there is enough information given and shown that tells us that Jason shared a lot of firsts with her.

But here is my first complaint, Lobdell didn’t need to tell us all that, in fact, he could just have told us that they were friends back in the All-Castle because when Essence is introduced in the story, Jason already thinks that she betrayed him and the All-Castle and he repeats several times that he either: wants to kill her or should have killed her in the past already. (RHatO vol.1 #7)

So, the first person that Jason had a love and/or sexual relationship with is now an enemy through betrayal, or so he thinks. After some back and forth and some other truths getting revealed, everything gets solved, Jason and Essence suddenly don’t interact much with each other.

We get another peek at their current relationship when she shows up in Roy’s hospital bed to help him recover from his injuries. There Jason says that she was his first kiss and that even though they have chosen different paths and they have tried to kill each other a few times they are still there for each other.

Wow, what a lovely message Lobdell, two people who have tried to kill each other and have an overall nasty/manipulative relationship, are still there for each other, which is what truly matters. Give me a break Lobdell, what is this? I understand this book is old by now but this narrative is not cute or special. They barely trust each other and they have been more than willing to kill each other but they are still on good terms, yay! Shut up.

Isabel, the flight attendant that may be a little too pushy at times.

Us and Jason met Isabel, the flight attendant when Jason is travelling along with Roy (RHatO vol.1 #2). Her introduction is very sexualised and Jason and her flirt a lot, he “checks her out” but he is also thinking that Isabel is better off not crossing paths with him anymore, but apparently that isn’t what she thinks because she leaves her number along with Jason’s drink. He is very surprised about that fact.

Jason had been struggling with the idea of calling Isabel because he didn’t want to mix his vigilante life with his normal life, that’s why when he calls her, he hangs up as soon as she answers the call. (RHatO vol.1 #7).

But that insecurity is thrown out of the window (apparently) because he does go on a date with Isabel even though he is doing everything possible to hide his double life (RHatO vol.1 #10). Isabel seems to be having an amazing time and as they reach Jason’s hotel, he offers to call her a cab, which means “date is over I want to go home”, but Isabel has other ideas she starts pushing him and saying maybe I don’t want to leave just yet and Jason is a little uncomfortable but Isabel just kisses him. Yeah, non-consensual kissing happens and this is the first (but not last) time it happens. The kiss is interrupted by someone else and the whole thing ends up with that someone (Orc), Kory, Roy and Jason talking.

Jason was so ready to make Isabel go at the end of their date earlier that he barely notices her when Kory and the others show up. She is literally on the floor asking what is going on and Jason doesn’t notice her until after they are teleported to a spaceship. Jason was so out of it that he didn’t notice her up until Roy pointed her out. How insane is that? What are you trying to say, Lobdell, Jason is an asshole? Or was Jason so uncomfortable on that date that he forgot that the date was still going on?

After they all realise that they are all stuck in space in the middle of an intergalactic war Isabel and Jason talk. Isabel lets Jason know that she thought that their date was boring and bad because Jason was trying to hide his real life, she also asks Jason why a vigilante asked a flight attendant on a date and he deflects that question like a pro. (RHatO vol.1 #11-12). You see, I think that Jason decided to go on a date with her because he thought that’s what he wanted or to prove himself that he could have something “normal”.

When they finally go back to earth Jason kinda acts like a jerk towards Isabel at the beginning but at the end of the issue, we see that Isabel invited Jason to stay the night at her apartment in Gotham, happy times happen and while Jason is in the shower Isabel gets attacked by Joker. The Joker made it seem like Isabel overdosed while Jason was in the other room which destabilised Jason a lot. He calls the cops and she is taken to the hospital after Jason leaves the apartment. (RHatO vol.1 #14-15) The last time we see her she is in the hospital recovering.

A long time passes by and we only see Isabel again when RHatO changes writers for a few issues, the author of Isabel’s comeback is Tynion. We see Isabel entering her home after a date, when she goes inside, she notices some weird robots and those things were put there by Jason who wanted to invite her to a private resort as a date. (RHatO vol.1 #28). Isabel decides to go and when Jason gets too wound up and is ready to kiss her, she tells him that he needs to slow down because a long time has passed since they last saw each other and she is quite mad that because they went on one date and she ended up on space for days and then got attacked in her own home. Jason is a bit taken aback by what she says but he doesn’t get to say much because a fight breaks out. Talk about signs… maybe they shouldn’t get together at all, you know what I mean?

After the fight was over, Isabel told Jason that she can’t do this (their “relationship”) any more, but that if the fight ever ended that he could go back looking for her. So, she “breaks up” with him but still kisses him before leaving. If you are leaving someone because you don’t feel like things are going right why on earth will you kiss them goodbye? It’s not like they were on a five-year-long relationship, they only went on two dates! Maybe this is not that big of a deal but come on…

Kory, this one wasn’t a “real” relationship but the idea of it was forced.

Although Kory appears in the first issue of RHatO we didn’t know then how Jason and Kory had met. That story is told later on and it begins with Jason appearing on the shores of an island where Kory’s ship was stuck. He is in and out of consciousness but we do see Kory taking care of him as he recovers, we also see that Kory has a little bit of heart eyes for the mysterious man, but that was because Jason looks like Dick Grayson (someone who she had dated and actually remembered even though she said she didn’t).

After Jason finally wakes up, he goes to her and she gives him clothing that used to belong to Dick, Jason knows those clothes are Dick’s but when he asks Kory who they are from she says that she doesn’t know (she was lying). After Jason gets dressed, he decides to tell Kory who he is and his story, so he tells Kory “Hey, there is something you need to know about me” and Kory kisses him. Ah yes, more non-consensual kissing, how wonderful! Jason is taken aback and Kory tells him that her people assimilate the knowledge that way, Jason doesn’t make a big deal out of it but I will. Lobdell, you knew that Kory didn’t have amnesia, and you know that Kory has been on earth for quite a long time, there was no need for that kiss. As the reader, I know that that’s how Tamareans learn stuff but I also think that Kory shouldn’t kiss people just to know new stuff! It baffles me that they are still doing this, it was silly then and it's silly now, stop the non-consensual kissing and then excusing it because of fictional alien traditions or whatever, just stop.

But I didn’t put Kory on this list for the kissing, I put her here because even though it was never explicitly shown that Jason and Kory had any type of interaction, there were some hints about it, like that time that Roy asked Jason if he was mad because he had slept with “his girl” to chich Jason answered something along the lines of “she is not my girl and she can sleep with whoever she wants”. (RHatO vol.1 #2)

But that’s not all because Lobdell gave us yet another moment in which Kory kisses Jason without his consent and Jason is written once again alarmed, this time even Roy is present and he is a little bit mad because his girlfriend is kissing someone else in front of him. At that point, Jason and Roy both knew that Kory wasn’t new to this planet and that she had been in a relationship with Dick Grayson previously. Because of all that, Lobdell passing yet another non-consensual kiss as Kory trying to tell Jason that he wasn’t alone in his fight doesn’t sit right with me, it’s even worse when you reach the end of the issue and Kory leaves both Jason and Roy on their own. (RHatO vol.1 #32) Yikes, Lobdell, yikes. (This is no hate to Kory or the other women on this run, this is pure hate towards Lobdell, please don’t get me wrong, he is the one being nasty).

Rose just appeared so Lobdell could tell us that she and Jason slept together.

Poor Rose, so many female characters being dragged into this mess by Lobdell, she really didn’t deserve this. She appeared in the last two issues of this run, two! Only for Lobdell to set up the idea that she and Jason had some fun nights in the past, honestly, who let this man write women?

Their interaction went like this: “Hey Rose, love that mask” “Yeah, I’d considered a heart tattoo that said ‘Jason’ with an axe hacking it in two” “I’m flattered, but I think you made the right choice” after Jason said that last part, he continued with this, “You want to explain what you’re doing here trying to kill us? I remember the last time I saw you; you had a big, satisfied smile on your face”. (RHatO vol.1 #39)

Really, Lobdell? She appears in the last two issues; you have them have that conversation and then in the last issue they are the only ones left (after the outlaws disband, RHatO vol.1 #40) but we never see her again, Rose isn’t mentioned in Red Hood/Arsenal or RHatO Rebirth, she isn’t mentioned any other time. Lobdell just thought that Jason didn’t look like he had fucked enough in the past so he decided to let the reader know that he had had some action. I hate him.

Barbara, this pains me, poor Babs, she didn’t deserve that.

No, Lobdell wasn’t the one who wrote this mess, it was everyone who wrote Batman Eternal. I mean, what was this group of men thinking? Where they playing darts and they had all the batboys’ pictures up on the wall and in whichever the dart got stuck, Barbara will get stuck too? Is that what happened? How often do they play this game, can they stop?

I don’t remember having read Batman Eternal and quite honestly, I didn’t want to put myself through that after I made myself read New 52 RHatO twice because I had forgotten to take notes of what had happened in each issue (I hate myself). So, I will only talk about the absurdity that was Batman Eternal #19 and #28.

All of the “relationships” that Lobdell came up with, were forced or out of place or both but this one takes the cake. It’s so simple and short, but oh, so annoying!

The phrase “You will never be Dick Grayson” coming out from Barbara’s mouth and it being directed at Jason should tell you just how many levels of wrong we are working herewith. Their whole interaction in this book seems to come from that phrase, how on earth do you build up a romance from that? Am I going crazy? Am I missing something? Come on, be honest with me.

Jason being the one who makes Barbara shake off mind control because he told her that he “only remembers what’s important, like the day he met Batgirl”, I am sorry but what? I really don’t have the words, he had even said before that he thought Babs liked him because she looked nervous, what is this writing? Since when does Jason care about Barbara? They met once when Jason was Robin and she was significantly older, what are these writers on, crack? (Batman Eternal #19)

But that’s not the worst thing, later in the book, they switch roles and Jason is apparently no longer interested in Barbara but she is all like “maybe you should stay this time, Jason. Help the family. Save Gotham” and Jason says “Gotham’s never been enough for me Barb” and I am not kidding, she tells him “What if there was more…?” That was hilarious, my gods, they must have been high when they wrote that because that is just too wild for me.

And Jason, the absolute beast that he is, says, “No. Because Barb, it’s like you said… I’ll never be Dick Grayson” (Batman Eternal #28). Jason, you dramatic little shit, what is going on? Why did the writers put us through all that just to end up being like “Babs is thirsty for Jason but he has already moved on”, what was the point of these interactions?

Yeah, that’s all I can say about that, let’s just move on to the mess that was Rebirth.

Rebirth.

Artemis, a new player enters the game.

While we did meet her in the first issue Jason isn’t seen being flirty with her up until they are in a bar and Jason is really drunk, he tells her that she has beautiful green eyes and Artemis is like, “if you are hitting on me, I will punch you in the head” (RHatO vol.2 #8), Lobdell back at it again with that mix between flirting and violence that I hate so much, lovely. But I guess this meant that Artemis was setting boundaries.

Boundaries and kinda thrown out of the window when later in the book we have something like looked like the start of a kiss that didn’t really happen because they were interrupted (RHatO vol.2 #11). Jason also acts a little too cheeky in two instances in another issue, one of them was a bit funny the other one no so much because Artemis was talking about how she had let only three people into her heart and one of them was now dead and she might have been losing another one, at that moment all Jason has to offer is “about that third person… does his name rhyme with Rason Rodd?”, which was a bit out of tune of him. (RHatO vol.2 #13).

The big surprise though is that out of the blue we have an issue called ‘Date Night’ where Jason and Artemis seem to go out on a date! What? We are moving on so fast! (Spoiler Alert: Jason thought it was a date, Artemis only wanted to talk about how weird Bizarro was acting at the time). One of the things that really caught my attention was how differently she was characterized in the issue and that within the story Jason hadn’t realised that Artemis wasn’t really acting like herself either. It could have been a cute date if not for the fact that Artemis wasn’t acting like herself because she wasn’t “really” on a date with Jason. Also, Lobdell does love to hint at Jason’s sex life, before they went on the date Bizarro said “use it (the teleporting door) all night if you need” and Jason responded, “I don’t think we will be needing it all night. I mean, if we do that’s okay, but I’m not, like, expecting anything”, it was kinda funny but yeah, come on! (RHatO vol.2 #19).

From that issue, we jump to the great finale (or not) of this “epic” “love” “story”, the so awaited kiss between Jason and Artemis, oh yeah baby! A couple of issues with flirting, a date that wasn’t a date but maybe if Bizarro wasn’t going insane at the time (who knows?). This kiss obviously comes with the separation of this team of outlaws, Jason is left alone on earth while Artemis and Bizarro are swallowed by a portal of sorts. Jason finally gets the kiss that he so desired, but at what cost? (RHatO vol.2 #25). Brutal issue for Jason, it was also like a special edition because it was bigger and that makes me laugh because all Jason did in that issue was suffer, how unlucky can this guy get?

We don’t see Artemis for a while but when she does come back, she is being controlled by something and it’s making her want to kill Jason, so to shake whatever was controlling her, Jason kissed her and hoped for the best (it worked). See, Lobdell can change! Before it was women forcing Jason into a kiss, now it’s the other way around! Yay! (RHatO vol.2 #41).

After all that we see Jason and Artemis spending some time together, it looks very friendly, they even have a very nice moment when Artemis hugs Jason as he lets himself grieve the loss of Roy. Jason also seems aware (this time) that Artemis is acting a little off and he gets her to talk about how much she missed her axe. It feels like they are taking it slow, they are figuring themselves out after so long, they probably won't kiss and make things complicated, right? Yeah, no, they do kiss, but they each pretend that it was like kissing a sibling. In the end, Jason does say that he lied and that he knows that she lied to him and that was okay with him, my only critique with this is: Why did they have to kiss? They could have waited instead of kissing and then lying about their feelings, what is this, Wattpad? (RHatO vol.2 #42)

Their relationship comes to a halt and we end up seeing them together (in a messy bed, twice) at the end of Lobdell’s run. But even though those two had their fun and Jason almost told Artemis that he loved her, things weren’t really meant to end with them as a couple because at the very end of the issue Artemis says her final goodbye to Jason. She says, “This is it. The end of us. I’m not being mean. I’m genuinely happy for you Jason. You have grown so much since you started the outlaws. But you don’t need us anymore. You don’t need me. Tell me I’m wrong” to which Jason responds, “I can’t. But if I ever needed anyone, it would have been you, Princess”. (RHatO vol.2 #50).

All in all, this was the best-developed relationship that Jason had, but so much about this, one could have easily been transformed into a friendship between the two. You will see better what I mean after I talk about Isabel’s presence in this run. Maybe it is just me, but a solid friendship between these two could have been spectacular, mostly because of what had happened in that one annual that had Dick as a guest.

In that issue Jason was very jealous of Artemis having the most obvious heart eyes for Dick, she was very flirty with him and he was a real gentleman with her. When she offered to take him back to his trailer at the circus he said yes and there, as they were walking towards his trailer, Lobdell wrote the best piece of dialogue in his ten years writing Jason. Dick asked, “So, are you and Jason… together?” to which Artemis responded, “Me? And Jason? Anyone and Jason?”. How is Lobdell so blind to his actual interesting takes on Jason Todd. Aromantic Jason was right there Lobdell, but you had to push your shitty version of “romance” every step of the way! (I am fine with Jason having a fantastic sexual life but listen, Jason being aromantic was still possible).

Essence, first Jason accused her of betraying him but now *Uno reverse card*

Do you guys remember that Essence and Jason’s last interaction in New 52? Jason said that even though they were always fighting or willing to kill each other they also will always be there for one another? Well, when Essence comes back in Rebirth she plans on killing Jason because apparently this time around he was going to betray her. Their very first interaction in this run (RHatO vol.2 #35), consists of Essence saying, “I don’t know if I should kiss you or kill you” to which Jason responds, “why do you have to choose?”. Lovely, Lobdell is back at it again with his shitty version of quirky “romance”, if he is trying to write them as sarcastic, he needs to do a better job at it because it’s not a good look, and not everyone has read his New 52 run so introducing these two in this book this way is kinda not good. But then again, maybe that’s just me.

As a fight ensues after they said those things, we are shown panels of Jason and Essence when they were together in the All-Castle, they would be cute panels if not for the fact that they are currently fighting to the death. It is an insane contrast, and Lobdell also has Jason think “I was the first human trained by the All-Castle. She was the only heir to a throne she never wanted. It was never going to work out between us.” But the thing is that it did work out between each other until Jason left the All-Castle, when they met each other again they had both been fed lies about the other and neither of them seems to want to look for clues to make sure that those rumours of betrayal were true. One will think that now, one of you might not feel so confident when they think the other will betray them again, you went through this already losers! But I don’t blame Jason or Essence for their stupidity, I blame Lobdell.

The fight lasts a few pages but it will end with Essence stabbing Jason with her ‘Blood Blade’ (not to be confused with the All-Blades, those are Jason’s), but here is the thing the Blood Blade comes with a curse if you draw blood from someone innocent your soul will be trapped inside the blade. This is what happened to Essence because Jason was innocent of what she was accusing him, just like she was innocent in New 52 when Jason accused her of betraying him and the All-Castle. Boring.

Now here is the thing, Essence might be dumb or she didn’t know how the Blood Blade worked because later on in the book, the blood blade is teleported by Essence (she was still inside of the blade) to the front door of Isabel’s home. The very next time that we see Isabel she is unconsciously sharing a body with Essence after touching the blade. She possessed her because at that time she still believed that Jason wanted to “destroy the world” (RHatO vol.2 #45). It wasn’t long until she realised that she was wrong and then teamed up with Jason once again. (RHatO vol.2 #46).

Lobdell, why must you recycle stories all the time and make women look stupid? Why would she still believe that Jason was up to no good after she got trapped in the blade? But my point here is that this is supposed to be Jason’s first love and their relationship consists of, flirting, remembering the good times, and almost killing each other every time they see each other because *betrayal*, it’s so tiring and annoying. Do better.

Isabel, aw, shit, here we go again!

Lobdell really had ladies ready to appear in Jason’s life when another had just left. This is one of my major problems with the way Lobdell writes all of Jason’s relationships. It would be lovely if DC and Lobdell just outright said that Jason is only interested in having sexual relationships that aren’t meant to last a long time. Because the way they had him involving himself with women seemed a little sketchy, in #25 Artemis finally kissed him and he seemed pretty happy about it, but then she was gone and now that Isabel appears in Jason’s life again, he acts as if Artemis didn’t exist.

Isabel shows up at the Iceberg Lounge after Jason made public his comeback and his management of the place. One would think that given how things ended up in New 52, Isabel would like to take things slow, after all, she had told him that he could go back to her if he stopped living his double life, but no, she talked to him for a few seconds and then proceeded to kiss him out of the blue. Lobdell’s favourite type of kissing makes a comeback, how nice, I didn’t miss it at all!

I want to be honest with you, maybe I am being too harsh, maybe these are all “surprise” kisses but in a way, it still doesn’t feel right, this is not the first time that someone kisses Jason when he doesn’t expect it (Isabel has done it multiple times already), but he is written as if he didn’t care, and that is not good. Men can feel pressured into kissing someone or can feel like they are being harassed. Lobdell and everyone on this creative team seem to think that being kissed by someone you haven’t seen in very long out of the blue is romantic or cute or sexy or whatever but it has repeated itself so much that I only find it uncomfortable and annoying to read and see. (RHatO vol.2 #33). Maybe it was just me because in that issue where Isabel goes to the Lounge they get attacked and she is not at all bothered by it, this time around, Jason even tells her that her safety is his first priority which is quite funny because the first time they were in a date Jason forgot she was present and only realised that she had been teleported alongside the outlaws to a space ship when Roy pointed it out, but I guess Jason is a different man now. I guess he wants to cultivate a relationship with her now.

And he might because your boy asked Isabel on a date in Paris. They just happened to both be around Paris at that time but here is where Jason says something that makes me speculate as to why he is actually dating, he thinks this, “Isabel Ardila. A flight attendant. Maybe the only normal person I’ve ever allowed in my life. Don’t ask me why.”

Well, Chonky, I won’t be asking you anything, I will actually give you the answers as to why you are letting Isabel into your life. You do it because you equate dating to normalcy, but I am here to tell you that it's fine if you don’t want to date and form romantic bonds, it's not something normal, it's just something some people do. If you like going out with her because of the sex or whatever then that’s fine too, but if you have to question why you are doing something, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it at all.

Jason looks a bit uncomfortable, and we also see that he is feeling sad and lonely because he misses Roy. He even thinks, “sometimes, she even makes me feel normal”. All of this normal talk really speaks to me about Jason trying to have friends outside the job but he doesn’t know how to approach that so he dates women because it makes him feel normal. I can relate to that feeling in a way, and I just think that Jason is confusing friendly love with romantic love, I don’t even know if he knows of the existence of platonic love. A reader that understands those feelings can see that maybe Jason is struggling to feel normal when he realises that he doesn’t love the same way as others. The thing is, I don’t really think that is what Lobdell intended to do, he just wanted to push two of his agendas, Jason has an active sexual/love life and Roy Harper was Jason Todd’s best friend and the only one who is allowed to suffer his death is Jason. In fact, back at the time, Jason was actually one of the few people (or maybe the only person) allowed to mourn Roy.

When the date is over and Jason’s walking Isabel to her hotel, they have a chat where it’s revealed that Isabel thinks that Jason isn’t still living that double life, she actually thinks that Jason is only working as the owner of the Casino, Jason doesn’t correct her. And then there is this very weird line that Isabel says, “The airline picks up my tab. This way you know I don’t love you for your money”, Jason is very taken aback when he heats Isabel say that she loves him so he manages to say “did you just…?” but Isabel stops him with a kiss and a simple “nope”. Jason moves on and goes to work because he is still doing the vigilante gig, the double life, that Isabel thinks doesn’t exist anymore. (RHatO vol.2 #34).

Isabel and Jason’s relationship has always looked forced to me, in rebirth, it was even weirder because Jason had just kissed Artemis and when she was gone, Jason kind of acted as if it didn’t matter that much to him and moved on easily with Isabel, but now Jason is acting kind of sketchy too because he is hiding his double life and the last time he did that Isabel ended up in a lot of trouble. I really don’t know if Lobdell remembers his own shitty writing but he should remember this stuff.

We move on too, and now Isabel has come to visit Jason at one of the events that the Iceberg Lounge has got going on, once again Jason is acting a bit strange because he was having trouble at the time with the idea of his biological father actually trying to contact him before he was killed and he was also having trouble because he was in Gotham after his adoptive father beat the living shit out of him and “banned” him from stepping foot in Gotham again. Jason seems to open up a little to Isabel but just as he starts doing so, she tells him she has to leave. Jason looks hurt for just one panel and then he moves on with his (double) life. (RHatO vol.2 #35). This is the issue where Jason also comes across Essence and traps her in her own blade.

Because everything falls apart in what was one of the best arcs written by Lobdell, Jason sends Dog (Jason’s dog) to Isabel, so Dog can be safe. (RHatO vol.2 #36).

We see Isabel after some very long time, and she is described as “The on-again/off-again girlfriend of Jason Todd. Currently off-again”, at this point in time Artemis was back to being herself and Jason had kissed her and all that. I am just saying, Jason obviously isn’t comfortable in a established romantic relationship. Lobdell dances around that idea a lot, every time with all these women.

This is the issue where Isabel finds the Blood Blade outside her home. (RHatO vol.2 #43).

As you can see, I have problems with Lobdell not handling the relationships very well, there is no concrete information being told to the reader or the characters within the story about how Jason wants to date, we never know if the women in the story know that Jason has been dating/flirting with other women. I am not saying that is bad but it would have been nice if Lobdell just used his words to tell us what he is doing.

I feel like saying that Jason is the kind of man that looks for sexual relationships without commitment isn’t something that will break the world in two. All the “romance” is incredibly forced, just say that he isn’t into romantic relationships my dude… unless Lobdell really thinks that the “romances” that he came up with are actually well written.

Anyway, Jason didn’t know that Essence who he has been fighting against and then alongside was actually Isabel, so, when Isabel and Essence get separated for a moment Jason is surprised. After Isabel tells him that they are in the middle of a battle so she is going to let Essence control her body again, Jason tells her that he “loves her”. (RHatO vol.2 #49). Does he love her for doing that or does he love her because he likes her? Hmm, that’s a good question, it is never actually answered in comics because we don’t really get to see Isabel or Essence after that happens and in the following issue (Lobdell’s last) Jason and Artemis seem to have been having a very fun night and they also kiss, Jason had even kissed with Artemis before he told Isabel that he loved her.

As you can see, its all very messy, Lobdell really said “Jason can’t be directly or indirectly single but I won’t really explain what is going on to the readers or to the characters within the story”, and that speaks volumes about how bad Lobdell’s writing is. This man simply cannot remember the things that he writes, he literally had Artemis say that she didn’t think she could see Jason dating anyone and then she wants to date him and Jason had already been dating people before that statement was made! It was all so messy! It makes all these side-romantic plots pointless; Jason was lonely because he constantly lost his friends, then give him friends! Friends are nice DC, stop making it about romances when you can just give your characters solid friendships.

Barbara, this time the pain is brought to us by Geoff Johns

I put Three Jokers as part of rebirth because I still don’t know if that garbage of a book is supposed to function within actual canon or not but it came out while Rebirth was going on so that’s why it’s here.

Now, the whole book was bad, we can all agree on that but Johns’ handling of Jason and Barbra’s “relationship” made me sick. This is another thing that writers love to do to Jason, write him as the kind of man that cannot take rejection and continues to be pushy about his feelings. Please, DC, don’t ever let Johns write another comic for you, it’s embarrassing at this point.

But in this book Jason wasn’t the only one acting weird, Barbara also did some weird stuff. In this run, Barbara thought of Jason as an unhinged criminal that needs to be locked up but Jason had heart eyes for Barbara every time they saw each other, their whole dynamic was wonky and weird. They even fought before and after Jason killed one of the Jokers.

But that’s not the real problem, the problem was that Johns decided to make Jason get tortured by the remaining Jokers while naked, this man was found naked, injured and mentally unwell by Batman and Batgirl after Jason and Batman had a fight, Barbara decided to take Jason to her home so he could recover.

Jason has just come out of the shower, he was clearly mentally and physically exhausted, and also very vulnerable. When Barbara came into the room Johns had them have a conversation while Barbara was fully clothed and Jason was just in a towel, and he was talking about how lonely and not cared for he felt, he was opening himself up to Barbara and apparently, Barbara (Johns) thought that the best she could do was kiss him, you know, to offer support.

Honestly, what the hell do male comic writers smoke when they write? You don’t show support to someone that has clear feelings for you with a kiss, to then pull away and say that “we committed a mistake”, we? Girl, come on, you made a mistake and a huge one! But one will think that Jason realised that Barbara did make a mistake when she kissed him and he also accepted the fact that she didn’t feel the same way as he did… well, not really, Jason is actually written as the kinda guy that doesn’t take well rejection and the kind of guy that keeps pushing for something between him and the other person to happen.

This man asked Barbara three times if she could give him an opportunity after the first rejection and he kept getting rejected! But that is not all because we all know that at the end of the book Jason left a letter (that thankfully Barbara will never see) in Barbara’s door when he asked again to give him a chance and that he would change who he was for her, he would actually stop being the Red Hood for her! Was Johns on crack? He had to be! The levels of wrong that are being messed around with here are out of the charts! Jason Todd, who has different values and morals than Barbara Gordon would stop being Red Hood just to get a date? Boy, don’t be dumb! Do male writers think that we are going to swoon over this kind of writing, do they expect me to applaud? I won’t!

This “relationship” was forced and incredibly out of place and out of character for everyone and it pissed me off even if it doesn’t affect canon because the writing is bad and the narrative is worse! If you love someone you shouldn’t change everything about yourself to be with them AND if someone says no or rejects your advances then the only thing you should do is back down!

This shouldn’t have to be said!

Future State

Rose, if you know me then you know that this is just a big no for me.

In the Future State: Red Hood story we are shown in the first panel of the first page that Jason is sharing a bed with someone else. We get to know pretty early that someone is Rose. The setting for their relationship is awful, both of them are working for the magistrate, they hunt “masks” otherwise known as heroes or vigilantes.

Jason hates his job and is known for bringing his “masks” alive, Rose on the other hand seems to have adapted easily while working with the magistrate and she is known for bringing the “masks” dead.

First red flag, why are two people who have such different ideals in a relationship together? Let me remind you that the Magistrate is not a good corporation or idea for Gotham, they are basically domestic terrorists and Jason is bringing them people that are like him (he is there undercover). Jason is going against everything that he is in order to infiltrate the Magistrate, Rose seems to be having fun. She brings the subject between them without care and seems to not really understand that Jason doesn’t like the work that they are both doing and that he doesn’t want to talk about it as if it were a normal thing that every couple does.

The second red flag in just a couple of pages is Williamson having Rose say “This is why we make sense. Daddy issues”, wow, are we really doing that, Williamson sat there and said Rose and Jason can make a good couple because both of them have unresolved problems with their parental figures, how wonderful. To me shared trauma isn’t a deal-breaker but sure, if you want to make one of your characters revolve her relationship with her partner around trauma, then that’s on you.

Jason also had a big problem with Rose attacking people who are hiding from the Magistrate because they are actually giving food to the “masks” and to people who don’t have to eat. Rose doesn’t seem to care and that makes the relationship a bit tense. So far, there are not many positives for this couple.

Things only get tenser, people are going around wearing those red pill looking helmets that Jason used to wear in Batman and Robin (2009), the funny looking ones, and those people are just normal people that are stealing food so they can eat or take them somewhere else. Jason is following one of those people and telling them that he doesn’t want to hurt them, just talk but Rose shows up and kills them. Jason is angry and Rose goes on a rant about how being a “mask” is against the law so she had a right to kill him.

Together they figure out that those people were being controlled so they go looking for whoever was behind those helmets.

They are tense and Jason is very cold with her even when she tries to lighten up the mood, but shit gets worse when they both receive an alert to go hunt another mask: Jason Todd.

Rose wants the money. Aw, nothing says healthy relationship more than murder.

The apparent reason why the Magistrate put a target on Jason was that he had the helmet that he took from that boy, when he realises this he puts it on and hopes that Rose finds him through that, so she can help him if he gets in trouble.

Jason gets mind-controlled through the helmet and is forced to fight rose, they fight for a while and then Rose breaks the helmet. Jason says “knew you would find me” and Rose responds “you are lucky I have a crush on you”, ok, is Jason okay with Rose wanting to kill him a few minutes ago when the alert on him came out? That’s not a big deal for them? Ok.

Jason seems to be in love with Rose even though they think differently and they are written with as much chemistry as a history book, he cares for her and does everything to save her when they get attacked by the Magistrate.

When they escape the initial attack, Rose grabs Jason and tells the Magistrate’s drones that he will take the bounty for Jason but that she will deliver him alive. Jason is surprised and angry but then the drones just leave. And we are left with Jason and Rose on a rooftop alone after Rose seemingly tried to betray Jason.

Do you know what Jason does next? He tells Rose that they should go on a holiday. He cares and keeps wanting to protect her from the Magistrate. Are you kidding me? This is so messed up; I want to remind you that these were the only two issues for this story. This is all the information we had for a long while and it is disgusting. DC really let this thing be published!

Rose betrays him twice; he is willing to harm him on some level and he still wants to be with her? Am I understanding that correctly? Later on, he keeps wanting to protect her from the Magistrate after he has evidence that they are hyper corrupt.

The point I want to make is that Jason and Rose shouldn’t have been introduced to us in this book as a couple or as people who have been sleeping with each other for a long time. I don’t know why this needs to be said but having a couple where one of them can think of killing their partner is absolutely awful. And then they make it worse by having the “victim” act like it doesn’t matter and that they should work on protecting the person that wanted to betray them.

I understand that there is a Future State: Gotham run going on with a Jason story in it written by Williamson but I don’t want to go near it. Future State: Red Hood made me uncomfortable and it made me cry out of frustration. How did this story get a pass by the editor? It’s disgusting, and it’s that because of this absolutely forced “relationship” that Williamson wanted to put in.

-

My point with all of these “couples/love interests reviews” is that writers need to be more conscious about what they write and about how some readers might perceive some messages.

Non-consensual kissing, harassment and all those things shouldn’t be part of the dynamic of two people that you are trying to put together. If there is some non-consensual kissing you can simply put a panel where the person apologises for their actions, but not even that is shown in these cases.

Comic writers need to be more aware of the way they write relationships. Yes, these are fictional worlds, people and situations but you are still playing with real-life interactions. Making some things appear in comics as normal things that you do to your crush/partner or whatever has an impact on people and writers need to become aware of this.

Lobdell was dying to let us know that Jason had a very active love/sexual life, great, but you need to show healthy relationships or make things clear about the relationships that Jason had. So many interactions that Jason had with women were overlapped with each other and the reader doesn’t know how to take it, is Jason a player or is he into open relationships, to me, it didn’t look like that but hey, maybe the writer would let us know? No, he won’t, because all he wanted to do was make Jason “date” more women.

Here is the thing, I have always felt like Jason was Aromantic, he likes having sex and having fun, but established romantic relationships aren’t his thing. It is what feels right (to me) with this character. And that’s (in part) because of all these messed up relationships that he was forced into. The two times that Jason seems to “be in love” are in Three Jokers and Future State: Red Hood, those two books are horrendous when it comes to Jason and love interests, in one of them Jason acts like the kind of man that cannot and will not take well a rejection and in in the other Jason acts as if he were blind to the abusive actions his partner does to him.

None of those two concepts are healthy or nice. Writers need to do better about that, they just have to.

So, to answer your question, I don’t think Jason Todd needs a love interest. Not as the main plot or subplot, maybe as a vague mention but nothing else, because comic writers suck at writing healthy and well-developed relationships. And because I really see Jason as the kind of person that wouldn’t involve himself in a romantic relationship with anyone.

I know this answer is more a rant than an answer but this subject is one that I have thought about a lot and it really made me nervous to bring it up. To everyone who thinks differently about these relationships, I understand and keep doing you, these are all just my thoughts and they are not worth more than yours.

Anon, thank you for the ask, sorry for making you wait so long and I hope that you have a wonderful rest of the week!